Spectre in the Eye
by Major Mario
Summary: A foreign voice in the ruins of a Shadaloo bunker. A curious Muay Thai warrior with a desire for twisted power. A strange cybernetic orb. When Adon's curiosity leads him on a short adventure with an unlikely companion, he soon realizes that curiosity has its consequences and that spectres aren't as transparent as they seem.
1. Like a Moth to a Flame

"It's real! It's real I tell you!"

"Oh yeah? And how do you know it's real?"

"Because Sunan said so! He's the biggest, toughest, bravest boy in the senior class! He said he heard it!"

"Nuh-uh! Sunan's a big coward. There's no way he woulda gone into the jungle all by himself. You're stupid, and Sunan's a big fat liar."

"No, you're stupid!"

Lessons were over for the day, and the schoolchildren of Pai were brimming with energy and opinions. Rather than head home to work on their homework or to see their parents, they dashed onto a nearby football (soccer) field to blow off some steam and fire up petty arguments. They chirped and kicked around that black and white ball for a few minutes before someone brought up the newest urban legend. The girls were quick to distance themselves away from the senseless bravado and bold-faced lies while the boys eagerly gathered around to swap stories that held very little merit with virtually no evidence to back them all up.

"Prasert said that- he said that he and his dad went up there last night," squeaked the runt of the group as they congregated at the side of the field. No-one paid any mind to the football sitting idle in the middle of a nearby path. "He said that he- they found uh- they heard someone in there."

"What? So he and his dad heard it?" Half of the boys rolled their eyes while the other half crowded around the smaller boy in intrigue. "What were they doing up there in the first place?"

"Forget that! What did he say he heard? Come on guys, clue me in here."

"The ghost! He said he heard the ghost in there!"

The children all gasped and whispered amongst themselves in wonder before they converged on the runt demanding questions. Baseless myths formed from tiny slivers of truth didn't interest the adults at all, so at the expense of everyone nearby who wanted to relax, the children continued to swap their tales and spin lies about things they couldn't possibly understand. Being children, they had little to no handle on volume control, and thus the field attracted plenty of attention. Most adults paid them no mind and went about their merry way while others looked on, shook their head and wondered where this current generation was going to end up.

One adult in particular ground his teeth at all the noise and came stomping out of the woodwork. For Adon, the Muay Thai prodigy, the jungle at the edge of Pai was where he went to unwind, and to distance himself from the local riff-raff. It was a peaceful place until some idiot decided to put up a football field next to his favorite meditation spot a year ago. Screaming red hair down, bare-chested, sporting his trademarked blue and yellow boxing shorts and wrapped hands balled up into fists, Adon didn't look like a man who wanted to play games just then.

"Don't you brats have anything better to do with your time?" the man said with a snarl.

Seeing Adon and not Sagat, the children flinched yet stood their ground. The red-haired Thai man was a terrifying jerk in their eyes, and unlike Sagat, Adon hated kids.

"Now, if you were kicking around that little ball of yours and wearing yourselves out, I wouldn't give a damn. But I see you brats bunched together and yammering on about... about-" Adon waved his hand about in his search before scoffing. "What are you anklebiters talking about anyway?"

"The... The ghost, Mr. Adon," piped up one of the kids; a grubby-looking, gangly, brown-haired boy.

Like a cat who caught sight of a mouse in the underbrush, Adon's head snapped towards the boy and his eyes narrowed.

"What ghost?"

"T-the one haunting those ruins in the jungle!"

For years the people of Pai were blissfully ignorant of any shady dealings going on in the jungle bordering their village. They had heard about SIN and Shadaloo, but few believed that such despicable organizations wanted anything to do with them or Thailand in general. But nearly three months ago a thundering explosion ripped through the jungle and local law enforcement came swarming into the village to get to the bottom of everything. As a secret to everybody, the villagers soon learned that there was a Shadaloo base hidden deep inside the jungle. The key word being 'was', as when the law enforcement converged on the sight they discovered nothing but a destroyed concrete bunker with Shadaloo motifs strewn about the area.

For a week after the discovery, anyone who had any status whatsoever rolled up their sleeves and dug into the hidden bunker for anything and everything. The people of Pai, and Adon included, didn't care what was going on in that bunker or what was inside it. They only cared that it was affiliated with Shadaloo, and better yet, that it had been destroyed. The lawmen took what they could find within the bunker, analyzed what little data they could get their hands on and then scurried off, but not before restricting access to the ruins.

Said ruins would have been forgotten not too long after had it not been for a strange, foreign voice coming from them after two months.

"There's no such thing as ghosts," Adon replied matter-of-factly. "It's all superstitious nonsense."

"Well... Well, uh..." Another boy scratched his head, stumped, before he perked up. "What about that woman who came here a few months ago? The outsider?"

"You speak about this like I know what you're talking about. You'll have to elaborate. Better yet, what in the world does an outsider have to do with your silly ghost story?"

A few other children found their courage to stand up to Adon, or at the very least speak up.

"She was... wicked! Like, she was so strange that she couldn't have been real to begin with. The night before that big explosion in the jungle, this creepy woman came in and looked around before heading out- right towards that base we didn't even know was there!"

Adon placed his face in the palm of his hand and sighed.

"Uh-huh. What did she look like?"

The children looked over to one of the smaller boys as he pressed his fists against the sides of his head over his ears.

"She had horns!" the boy exclaimed. "She was all black and purple and white too. And she was mean! Really, really mean! But we couldn't understand her; she wasn't speaking Thai."

"Now you're just making things up," Adon growled. The kids yipped back at him in defense of their star witness, but Adon wasn't convinced. "Alright, I'll humor you then. So let me guess. You believe that this ghost in the ruins is that strange woman from three months ago? The very same woman that no-one has ever seen before besides you lot? It's probably a coincidence-" Adon cut himself off, blinked twice, then balled his hands into fists. "Rrrggh... It's all one big made-up story."

"But there's a voice, Mr. Adon. Prasert and his dad went to the ruins last night and heard a voice coming from within," chirped the runt of the group as the other children nodded. "They said that it sounded like a woman. An angry, foreign woman. It has to be a ghost!"

"Yeah, I don't believe any of this hogwash."

The red-haired Thai scoffed, shook his head and turned on his heel to leave when he heard one of the children, indignant, shout after him.

"You might not believe us, but we know that the ghost is real! And tonight I'm gonna go into those ruins to get proof!"

At that Adon had to stop right in his tracks. He glanced over his shoulder at the speaker, saw a chubby, black-haired whelp of a boy and couldn't help but laugh. And yet, just as he started to chuckle, reality hit him like a brick. He couldn't allow these children to go into those ruins. With the jungle slowly yet steadily overtaking the concrete and metal, there was a possibility that the structure would collapse on top of anyone who disturbed it. Knowing children and their tendency to touch everything in sight, Adon figured if one or several kids went into those ruins, few, if any, were going to come out alive. There was no way he was going to have their deaths weigh on his conscience, even if he hated them all.

Adon cracked a sardonic smile and shook his head.

"You're not going into those ruins, whelp."

"Why not? I'm not scared!"

"You should be. Not only are those ruins unstable and clearly off-limits, they used to be a Shadaloo bunker." Adon folded his arms across his chest. "Oh yes. Shadaloo. The very same organization that gets its sick kicks killing indiscriminately for... whatever nefarious plots or such. Who knows what kinds of sick, twisted things lie inside?"

But the children weren't convinced. If anything, they latched onto the chubby boy's declaration of courage and rallied behind him. With Adon as their antagonist, they started to get ideas.

"There's nothing in there but that ghost," the chubby boy arrogantly stated. "And you know what? I think you're the one scared. Mr. Sagat wouldn't be sca-"

Adon had to hold back from flinging himself forward. A vein cropped up on his neck as his eyebrows scrunched together, his eyes narrowed and his teeth flashed.

"You... miserable little worms... You're going to be the ones scared out of your minds when you eventually grow up and find yourselves with the real world barreling down upon you all. Worse yet, if any of you weaklings decide to practice Muay Thai, I'll be there to crush your hateful little heads in. Like this!"

Adon scooped up the nearby football and, with his gaze dead set on the children before him, he crushed the ball between his hands. The sudden pop, the destroyed ball and Adon's angry look was enough to get the children to run off with their tails between their legs, screaming and crying all the while. The man took some sadistic pleasure in scaring them off, but fresh children's tears weren't enough to mend his wounded pride. He wasn't scared of any ghost and for good reason. They simply didn't exist, and anyone who believed otherwise was a total buffoon.

He tossed the deflated ball away and cackled.

"Me? The emperor of Muay Thai, scared? What pathetic tricks were they trying to pull? I'm not even the slightest bit curious about those ruins anyway. They can fade away into obscurity for all I care." Adon rubbed his chin in thought. "Though... Those brats could still be thinking about going into there... Hmm! No, not likely. Only an idiot would think of going into the jungle in the dead of night."

Pleased with his victory and smug over the fact that there were no such things as ghostly women haunting old ruins, Adon went home... and then went right into the jungle.

* * *

"Stupid kids," Adon grumbled as he trudged through Pai's jungle in the dead of night. "When I get back there'll be hell to pay."

Once he got over the shame and stupidity of his desire, Adon got into a more casual and jungle-appropriate outfit, grabbed a flashlight and headed out to investigate those damned ruins. Wearing a nondescript shit and jacket combo, pocketed trousers and comfortable boots, it was Adon's hope that, were he to stumble upon anyone out there in the wild, they wouldn't recognize him and call him out on his lapse of judgment. He didn't bother to put on something more in case the rain came down or cold seeped through the brush. The man figured he would be in and out of those ruins long before the elements punished him.

Knowing the jungle like the big cat he idolized, Adon conserved his flashlight and made his way down a well-trodden trail. It was one of hundreds, but this one with its winding passes, scenic outlooks and luscious vegetation made it popular. In near-darkness Adon couldn't make out the night critters scampering about before his sight and retreating into their dwellings, and neither could he make out the massive tree roots that poked up from the trail and tripped him up. The man felt embarrassed about stumbling, so he used that for a good cause. Namely, angrily stomping through the jungle.

"If anything, the only thing I'll find in those godforsaken ruins... would be bats." Adon stopped at an intersection, took a deep breath and then continued on his way. He knew that he was getting close judging by deep tire tracks this far into the jungle. "Hmph. Well, there could be a clutter of leopard or golden cats in there. Better the latter, what with their habitats being trampled over so regularly," said Adon with increasing venom as he glared over at discarded police barricade ribbons. "Protect and serve, my ass!"

Other than a few more stumbles form bumbling around in the dark, Adon reached his destination without much trouble. Hidden away underneath the tall trees and protected by the uneven terrain was the Shadaloo base in all its forgotten glory. Thick, electrified fencing outlined the perimeter of the base with guard huts interjecting here and there for added security. Thanks to the explosion, attention from law enforcement agencies and time, the fencing was no longer electrified and was in a state of disrepair. The chain-link gate in front of the base was lodged deep into the rainforest mud thanks to constant traffic, which allowed Adon to see himself in.

He paid little heed to the signs warning him of an unstable structure, or that he was now trespassing. But Adon wasn't trespassing, as this was his jungle.

A concrete loading dock directed the man over to the entrance to the base. Adon flicked on his flashlight and scanned the drab, sturdy concrete walls of the structure in front of him. It appeared that the entire base was no larger than that of two American football fields placed side-by-side, though Adon had reason to suspect that there were lower levels. Nearly two stories high from ground level, the base certainly looked imposing, especially with those grim Shadaloo skull emblems framing the entrance. Said entrance used to be a set of red blast doors had they not been blown to smithereens with gaping holes where they were once anchored. Rocks, rebar and other bits of debris were blocking the entrance, but Adon found a way inside soon enough.

"I can see why this place is deserted. It's a pain to get here for anyone who doesn't know the jungle like myself," Adon mused aloud. He clambered over the pile of debris blocking his passage and slipped into the base's foyer, if it could be called that. "Once the Royal Thai Police and everyone else had their fill, they must've scuttled everything that they could..."

Such exposition was backed up by the sight of sturdy pillars and support beams lying in shambles throughout the expansive room Adon found himself in. Blast marks ran up and down what little bits of untouched concrete there were while rebar stuck up like bones. Glass and sharp metal were strewn about along with the remains of broken equipment. Simply put, the entire area was a deathtrap for the unwary, and the RTP wanted it to be that way. The whole base was a cold, dark and foreboding place that probably never saw any bright colors, nor did it serve as the birthplace for any genuinely 'good' ideas. Armed with his flashlight, Adon soldiered on and stuck to walkways that were still intact until he came to an impasse- that being nowhere else to go but down.

He shined his light into a gaping hole in the foyer's floor and took in what looked to be some kind of massive generator room below. Adon wasn't a techie, so he wasn't too sure of himself. He also believed that he wasn't a massive idiot, and so without any further reason to go further, the man clicked his tongue and shook his head.

"Nothing here but dust," Adon muttered under his breath, impatient. "If there was a ghost here, or more likely a survivor, I would have heard them by now. Nnngh..."

And yet, even as Adon voiced his frustration, he noticed something gleaming in the distance. He focused on it and, though it was far away, he could make out a faint purple glow. Curious and unwilling to return to his village empty-handed, the man dropped down the hole in the floor and came into the generator room. He swept his flashlight over the debris cluttering the area and felt a sense of dread. There wasn't much explaining it, but he knew deep down in his soul that this was where the true explosion happened.

"What the hell happened here?" Adon wondered as he glanced over at the walls and generators. Nearly every wall section was crumbling, deteriorating or already destroyed while the generators and other supplementary machinery were in pieces; damaged beyond any hope of repair. "Bunch of fools meddling with explosives, probably... Now, what's this?"

The glow lead Adon towards the very back of the room. A metallic orb of sorts was tangled up in a myriad of wires hanging above the floor within reach. Getting closer, Adon noticed that the orb had an eerily familiar Chinese yin-yang design. Some kind of violet energy was contained within the gumball-sized sphere, and it was very likely that it was responsible for the glow. The Thai man shuddered; not from fear, but from the odd feeling that he was being watched.

It was a preposterous thought that only served to irritate Adon. He gazed at the strange orb for a second longer before snatching it from its wired bindings without any care whatsoever.

"A curious little bauble... Well, I suppose this'll have to do." Adon shrugged and let loose a defeated sigh. "No ghost. No voice. Just a waste of my precious t-"

The wires that comprised the orb's hanging prison sparked as they swayed back and forth. Startled, Adon hopped back like a wary cat and looked on. That would have been the end of it, but the spark triggered a generator to come back online. The massive contraption sputtered and churned before it began to shake and bring to life the other generators as well as what few surviving lights were there in that large room. Shaking generators in an unstable structure did not bode well, so with the Shadaloo base rumbling all around Adon, he decided to cut his losses and leave.

He slipped the strange orb into his pocket, whirled around and booked it towards the gaping hole in the ceiling as debris peppered the floor all around him. The entire base was announcing its imminent collapse with a cacophony of horrid sounds, and Adon wasn't planning on sticking around long enough to hear the finale. He shot up an angled wall, kicked away a twitching surveillance camera from its wall mount and leapt up to catch the lip of his exit. Beneath him, the floor gave way to reveal a dirty, deadly abyss, but Adon had already pulled himself up and thrown himself out of the base by then.

The cool air of the jungle greeted Adon once he made it to safety. He keeled over to catch his breath, wiped his forehead clear of sweat and peered over his shoulder at the crumbling ruins of the Shadaloo base. Were he a little slower, such a place would have become his grave. As he watched more and more of the concrete deteriorate Adon adopted a smug grimace. Besides that strange, glowing yin-yang bauble or whatever it was, there was nothing of interest within the base. No ghost, no voice, no nothing. He could return to his home with his head held high.

Oblivious to the faint vibrations coming from the little orb in his pocket, Adon dusted himself off and started back from whence he came.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Hey folks. This here's based off an idea 'BB-Wolf123' gave me. One idea can make all the difference! This'll hopefully be a short story, and it's not yet complete. I've got another two chapters after this one, and I'll release them with a few days in between so I'll have enough time to finish the story. I don't mind if you don't want to comment or review, but I will encourage you to read and review the works of other authors/writers here in the Street Fighter fandom corner. 'Till next time, lads.


	2. Witchy Woman

With so few people in Pai awake for Adon to gloat over his adventure, the proud Thai saw himself back into his home and settled down for the rest of the night. It was a modest home with how similar it looked to many other houses in the area, but there were a few striking differences here and there. For one, the place was wired with electricity. Adon didn't utilize the television often enough, nor did he sit down and surf the internet if the dust and clothing cluttering the designated desk had anything to say about it. There were plenty of other modern day amenities to enjoy in this house too, but nothing that went above and beyond the typical first-world fare. Despite being an arrogant man, Adon wasn't that greedy or materialistic.

He threw off his jacket and shirt, cleaned himself off as best as he could without hopping into the shower and then sat down at a dining room table under a bright light. Like an adventurer fawning over treasure, Adon was eager to examine the odd bauble he picked up. Upon closer inspection the man found that the device was no longer glowing as it had once been, though that made it easier to examine the intricate markings contained within. His fingers, stiff and unrefined, had no chance of cracking open the bauble on their own, but it wasn't that Adon wanted to do so in the first place. The little orb was a technological marvel that Adon just couldn't decipher.

The man's fingernails scratched against dried blood that he deduced was well over three-months-old. Whatever the bauble was, it had been embedded in someone's body like an augmentation.

"Well that's unsettling," Adon muttered to himself. He held it up to his eye like a jewel for a moment before depositing it into a bowl on the table. "Eugh, maybe you'll fetch a good price in a pawn shop somewhere."

Having said that, Adon got up from his seat, turned off the lights and crawled atop his bed to stave off his exhaustion.

* * *

His sleep would have been uneventful had it not been for a churning, mechanical hiss that woke him up before first light. Adon stayed in bed with his eyes and ears open as the hissing continued before a strange whoosh and complimentary crashing of furniture and pottery forced him to get up. There was an intruder in his home! Groggy, startled and angry, not to mention wearing nothing but boxers, Adon wasn't primed for a fair fight in his own home. A baseball bat was lifted out from a corner of his bedroom and hefted up into a swinging position. Adon didn't play the sport; hardly anyone in Thailand did, yet it was far more civilized to keep a piece of sports equipment within reach instead of a sharp blade these days.

Adon came out of his bedroom and brought his bat down on a figure standing next to his dining room table in a textbook case of 'shoot first and ask questions later'. Alas, when his strike surged through his target, Adon's eyes opened wide as a myriad of questions filled his head and demanded to be answered. What just happened? Who was in his home? How could he have missed? And better yet, how was he going to get back into the fight when his body, primed for collision, phased right through the intruder? He stumbled into a chair and fell to the ground before he could answer any of those questions.

A feminine, grating voice cut through the sounds of the collision, but Adon couldn't understand a word of it. He scrambled back to his feet to discover a woman looming over him, and not just any kind of woman. This one was dressed in what appeared to be a customized, unorthodox taekwondo uniform complete with fighting gloves and tape around her feet. She was slim and small with great curves, but Adon could see the muscles from her exposed midriff and knew that, whoever she was, this was no ordinary fighter. At first glance the man thought he saw horns growing out from the top of the woman's head as if she was a demon, but a second later he realized that it was a sinister, intricate hairstyle. But the most glaring feature of this woman was the fact that her body, from head to toe, was made up of incorporeal violet haze.

There would have been no way of knowing that last bit had it not been for the woman's counterattack. When Adon was busy getting back to his feet, he had looked up just in time to see the woman kick him square in the face, and yet her limb surged through him as if he was an unmovable object and she an early morning fog. The woman's face fell, so in an effort to save it she lashed out again. But the kick had no effect whatsoever besides making Adon raise his guard. The two were at an impasse- a half-naked, baffled Thai and an incorporeal woman with no way of harming each other.

"Who are you- No, scratch that, what are you?" Adon demanded as he held his bat close.

The woman's tiny eyebrows scrunched up in bewilderment before she said something in return. Again, Adon couldn't understand what she was saying, and now that he was fully awake, he had no patience to spare.

"Why me?" Adon muttered under his breath. He shouldered his bat and jabbed a finger at the woman. "Speak Thai, dammit! Or..." His tone eased up by a slim margin as he continued, now in another language, "Can you speak English?"

"Yeah," came the curt reply, "and I can tell you to screw off in English too, you spastic little freak."

"Oh, oh good. Now that we understand each other, maybe you could tell me what you're doing in my home?"

"Don't blame me. You brought me here in the first place."

"As if I would ever-" Adon fell silent in a heartbeat once realization set in. "Wait. Wait a minute here. Horned hairstyle, foreign-speaker, said to have headed towards that Shadaloo bunker... You can't be the source of that voice the villagers here have been talking about."

"Jesus Christ, three whole months of yelling in the middle of the night for somebody, anybody, to fish me out of that concrete cesspit and I get you," the woman hissed.

"I wager if you had a physical body you'd be throwing yourself at me, but in absence of one, why not settle for feeling honored to be in my presence?" Adon retorted. He set his bat off to the side and adopted his usual arrogant smirk, though it was somewhat marred by being used against a wraith. "I am Adon, the Emperor of Mua-"

"Unfortunately I know who you are, so save the flashy introductions for someone who doesn't."

If the woman had a physical body, it would be Adon throwing himself at her instead, but with fangs and claws at the ready.

"And you are?" Adon asked once his smirk died outright.

"Hmm... You can call me Juri." She folded her arms and sighed. "Figure we oughta know each other."

"Why's that? Decided to practice some manners for a change?"

Juri chose to reply with only a roll of her eyes and then directed her attention towards a broken bowl atop the dining room table. Amongst an assortment of paper scraps, coupons and other meaningless trinkets was the bauble from those now-destroyed ruins. Delighted, Juri reached over in an attempt to pick it up, yet just like before with Adon, her limbs phased through everything. The object did jitter and start to roll, but despite Juri's attempts she simply couldn't pick the damned thing up. Adon swooped in and nabbed the bauble so he could keep it safe, and also shove it in Juri's face like a badge.

"I take it you came from this?"

"No, I came from this gym bill," Juri replied. "Of course I came from that!" She took a few seconds to compose herself and think before adding, "At least, that would make the most sense right now."

"Woman, none of this makes any sense," Adon growled. "You materialize into my home, break my things and have the audacity to take a swipe at me. I be-"

"You came at me with a frickin' bat, man!"

"I believe I'm due an explanation."

"Fine," Juri scoffed. She then turned away with a grimace on her face. "But first, you're going to put on some clothes."

Adon wasn't much of a self-conscious man, but he figured he must have looked like a neanderthal. The oak baseball bat didn't help dispel that image. He expressed disdain at Juri's demand, no matter how benign it was, yet was far too curious to shoot her down. The rational side of him directed him back into his bedroom to put on clothing while at the same time reassuring him, or giving him hope, that at some point he would be able to get rid of this woman. Adon slipped into his blue and yellow boxing shorts, put on a shirt and slinked back into the main room to face down this malicious spirit once again.

To his chagrin, Adon caught sight of Juri making herself at home. She perused some of Adon's decorations and hung-up photos, some of which were still-shots of him after a winning fight or newspaper clippings of his exploits, wandered over to his pitiful television set and threw herself onto a nearby couch on her backside. Juri literally sank between the cushions like loose change and disappeared from view with a disconcerting thud before popping up behind the couch with a flustered look on her face. She concentrated, reached out for the couch and managed to interact with it just enough to sit down, though she didn't look happy with how things had worked out.

The woman then noticed Adon glaring over at her from afar and tried her play it off.

"What?"

"Managing to sit, are you?"

"Oh, excuse me, I'm not a ghost expert," Juri shot back. "You might have noticed, I hope, that I don't have a flesh and blood body anymore."

"I had a feeling that you were some ghostly apparition, but I take it there's more to it than that." The proud Thai moved around the couch to stand before Juri. This wasn't going to be some chummy conversation; he had no desire to sit down and let down his guard. Instead, he folded his arms and adopted a stiff upper lip. "So go on. Humor me with your explanation."

"This could drift into theory territory. You sure you can handle that without your brain turning to mush?" Juri half-expected the man to growl, but instead he offered a chuckle in return. It seemed that the both of them rather enjoyed their back-and-forth insulting banter, or at least, Adon reveled in the challenge Juri presented. "Hm, alright then. So, let's cut to the chase. You're familiar with the Shadaloo bunker a few miles away from here?"

Adon nodded in reply.

"I knew that there was a bunker, but I didn't care what they were doing in there. Until yesterday I was content with letting the damned thing get reclaimed by the jungle." Before Juri could ask him why he suddenly decided to care, he produced the little orb from before and held it out for Juri to look at. "I found this inside."

"You're holding my eye, you know," Juri replied. Adon recoiled as if he had just singed his hand while Juri grinned. "Relax, it's cybernetic. It's called the Feng Shui Engine, and to make a long story short, that's what kept me alive." When the Thai looked confused, Juri took that as her cue to explain. "I work for a company that specializes in cybernetics, and we're not too keen on letting Shadaloo run free. Three months ago, I had good information that the leader of Shadaloo-"

"Bison?"

"Mhmm, good ol' Bison. I got word that he was sightseeing in Thailand, but nowhere near Bangkok. Apparently he had a bunker set up near this quaint little tourist trap, so I thought it'd be real neighborly of me to pay him a visit and... you know, kill him in cold blood."

It took a great deal of self-restraint for Adon to not roll his eyes. Great, another revenge story. Adon had a feeling that everyone in the world had a reason to hate Bison for being a mass-murdering, psychopathic terrorist, but so few people could say that they wanted him dead and had the backbone to make it happen. Looking at Juri, Adon couldn't imagine someone like her going toe-to-toe with Bison, but he decided to reserve judgment for now. After all, the world was filled with crazy fighters who were dangerous if underestimated.

"So, I get to the bunker and start wrecking house. I'm kicking down doors, bashing heads together and screaming bloody murder until Bison finally shows up. The two of us start going at it, like, end of the world, winner-take-all fighting." Juri, who up until that point had been performing with her hands, smashed a fist down into an open palm. "Suddenly one of us- could've been me- hits something volatile and the whole place starts going haywire. Boom! Big explosion, lots of pain and everything goes dark and quiet."

"Sounds like you died right then and there," Adon commented. "But then, so, this... cybernetic eye of yours managed to save you? How is that possible?"

"This beauty right here generates a near-infinite amount of ki energy for me to use. Like an engine, once it's fired up I'm practically unstoppable, and I can take down any idiot even if they're some superpowered freak. It's grown on me over time, and with ki energy being tied to your soul, lifeforce or whatever, I imagine it recovered me when I died." Juri shrugged her shoulders. "I know, it probably doesn't make any damn sense."

"No no, it makes sense. So that makes you some kind of lich then?"

The spectral woman looked at Adon as if he had grown a second head.

"Uh... A what?"

A man with some humility would have taken the hint and piped down right away, but Adon, either out of a desire to show that he was far more clever than he appeared or the delight of hearing his own voice, carried on without a second thought.

"A lich. A human or some kind of creature who cheats death with the use of a phylactery, or through other magical means. Ki energy is practically magic, in a way." Juri continued to stare at the man while Adon gestured to the Feng Shui Engine in his hand. "Just look at this eye of yours. If your soul is tied to it and it brought you back from the dead, that makes this your phylactery. Plus you look pretty undead to me."

Juri maintained her confused silence for a few seconds before she broke out laughing. In an instant Adon went from informative to downright furious. The woman rocked back and forth in her seat as she cackled away while Adon wrung his hands in agitation, and soon she jabbed a finger at him as if he was the village idiot.

"Wooooaaaah! I heard a lot about you, Adon, but I had no idea- no idea whatsoever- that you were such a nerd!" Beaming now, Juri stood up and paced about as her shoulders heaved. "Where the hell did you- Do you play Dungeons and Dragons? Oh god, now I can't stop thinking about you and your nerd buddies dressing up and nerding out over knights and monsters and- and doing the silly voices!"

"I am not a nerd," Adon grumbled in a soft, dangerous tone of voice.

"Really? 'Cuz I think I saw a twenty-sided die on that table back there."

"I am not a nerd!"

There came a knocking at the front door, but Adon's indignant roar drowned it out. He bared his teeth and fidgeted before lurching forward with a clenched fist. Just as he was in the ring, Adon had a knack for dramatics and tended to let his temper get the better of him.

"You think I'm just going to stand here and take your insults like some spineless worm? I am the Emperor of Muay Thai and you will treat me with the respect I deserve!"

"Ah jeez, there it is again," Juri shot back. Her beaming smile contorted into a sickening sneer. "Emperor! Emperor of Muay Thai! Some emperor you'll be, you egotistical, red-headed b-"

The dull thuds of someone knocking at the door soon turned into thunderous thumps under the weight of a heavy fist. Adon and Juri cut their bickering short and looked to the source of the sound, then back to each other. Without a word spoken between them, Adon pocketed the Feng Shui Engine and stormed his way to the door while Juri ducked down out of sight. The fiery Thai slid back a bolt lock on his door and flung the damned thing open fully expecting to see some salesman, fight coordinator or worse, the parents of the children he scared yesterday. Alas, once Adon realized who was on his front step, his blood ran cold.

Standing at well over seven feet tall and glaring down at Adon through one misty white eye was the one and only Victor Sagat, and he looked downright pissed.

"Have you lost your mind?" Sagat bellowed. He towered over his former pupil while Adon seemed to shrink in the doorway like a scolded child. "You went into that bunker, didn't you? Didn't you?"

"Wh-what the hell are you doing here?"

"I live here, you imbecile! I heard that deplorable den crumble late at night and was tempted to think nothing of it until a few of the schoolchildren just told me they saw you sneak into the jungle-" Sagat's eye caught Adon's dirty shirt and jacket hanging up on a set of hooks past the doorway and huffed. "You did!"

"So what if I did?" Adon snapped. "Why the- Why do you care?"

"Because it was a Shadaloo bunker and-"

"Oh, so you were feeling nostalgic, eh? You wanted to reminisce about that dark, pathetic chapter in your miserable life?"

Sagat reached down and grasped the front of Adon's shirt to tug him up as he leaned in even more.

"Because Shadaloo monitored that bunker, and everyone involved in scavenging it was murdered a month later." Adon squirmed in the tiger's grasp, but his heart skipped a beat when he realized what the man was getting at. "Government officials, Royal Thai Police officers, even their families. Anyone who wasn't Shadaloo was silenced."

A tense, uncomfortable silence settled between the two Muay Thai fighters. It kept for a few seconds before Adon broke it with a hoarse murmur.

"I... I didn't know that."

"Of course you didn't. You only think of yourself, Adon." Sagat let his ex-pupil go and looked on as the younger man processed this new information. "I don't care why you went in there to begin with, but know this: if your actions cause this village to come under fire, I'll hand-deliver you to Bison myself."

He made a convincing argument. Anybody else would have tried to make amends in any way they could, and while Adon had sense enough to realize that innocent people could suffer because of his curiosity, his temper came back with a vengeance. Getting scolded was irritating enough, but for it to come from a man he considered dead to him? Hot, fiery blood boiled in his veins as he glared up at his mentor until things reached a fever pitch. Adon snarled, reached for the door and slammed it shut right in Sagat's face with a deafening crash.

"Fool! Miserable old fool! Deliver me to Bison himself?" Adon stomped back into the living room and missed Juri as she poked her head up from behind the couch with a smug, sadistic look on her face. "Rrragh! Even declawed and dethroned, that bastard still manages to be a thorn in my side!"

"That's a shame," Juri mused aloud. "I was looking forward to seeing a catfight in here."

"Oh I'll sh-"

Suddenly Adon went quiet once he locked eyes with Juri. The woman maintained her smug look for a moment longer and even accentuated it with a flash of white teeth, but as the seconds trickled by her smile faded. Adon didn't retort, nor did he move towards her. Slowly he reached into his pocket to pull out the Feng Shui Engine all without making a single sound. His stare cut through Juri, then down to the orb in his hand. This was a quiet anger; one Juri found deeply unsettling, especially since the man's attention was on her eye instead of her.

"Hey. Yoo-hoo, anyone home?" Juri moved to stand up as Adon turned and walked away. "Dude, are you deaf?"

Still no response, and with Adon drifting towards a small balcony overlooking a dense, endless jungle, Juri felt dread well up inside.

"Hey, what are you doing?" The man opened a sliding door and stepped out onto his balcony. "No... No, no- Hey, no- Don't you dare!"

"Maybe he's right," Adon growled as if he had just swallowed something rotten. He gazed out towards the jungle and held the Feng Shui Engine close. "Maybe it was daft of me to go in that accursed place, take home some shiny trinket, and risk all of Pai in doing so."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Juri hissed as she came up beside him.

Adon, now sporting a toothy grimace and holding the orb up in a throwing position, dropped his quiet facade.

"And maybe," he snarled, "maybe it was beyond asinine of me to have put up with you for this long!" On reflex Juri went to snatch up her eye from Adon's hand, yet he ripped it away before she could find purchase. Nice try, though she still couldn't seem to touch him just yet. "I don't care if you're some poor, forgotten soul, a lich or a wish-granting genie! I've had just enough of you and-"

"Wait, wait! I didn't get to finish explaining!"

"And that's my fault? You chose to insult me!" Adon shot back. "Keep your wild explanations for the next sorry soul to-"

"Raging Demon!"

A cold tsunami of surprise slammed into Adon and left him still and silent. He turned away from the jungle and glared down at Juri.

"What did you say?"

"Raging Demon," Juri cooed, her voice soft, cautious and slow. "I can help you get the Raging Demon."

Eyes narrowed, Adon crept close.

"How do you-"

"I told you. I know who you are. And I know what you want above all else. You want the Raging Demon to perfect Muay Thai, or for yourself. Whatever the reason, you want it." Sensing that the man needed more, Juri continued to lay it on nice and smooth. "Back during Shadaloo's Alpha Tournament you were approached by Bison, and you remember what happened?"

Though it had been a few years since that time, Adon did remember the Alpha Tournament. How could he not? During the events Adon challenged Sagat for his title and defeated him. Such a crowning achievement couldn't possibly be forgotten, and neither was the proposal Bison came to him with. Pleasantly surprised to see a former, powerful Shadaloo King dethroned by a once-underestimated pupil, Bison offered Adon a position in Shadaloo. The proud jaguar warrior had no desire to be apart of the organization, nor did he 'stoop so low' as to give Bison the time of day. He ran his mouth, tempers flared and soon the Thai fighter and Psycho Power powerhouse were mere seconds away from killing each other.

But before either player could step forward with their killing intent, a new challenger rushed out of the shadows and annihilated Bison with one move: the Shun Goku Satsu, AKA the Raging Demon. And the perpetrator? The fighter with a 'ten' on his back; the very same fighter Adon had been searching for. The red-haired, demonic fighter vanished soon after leaving Adon to stew in envy. He desired that move to thrust himself into history as the one and only God of Muay Thai, and in the years after the tournament, that desire was still strong.

"I remember," Adon replied with a nod. "But how could- I thought only Sagat and Bison knew... And that large-breasted fortune teller, whatever her name was."

Juri gave Adon an incredulous look.

"Dude, you were monologuing. Even in a thunderstorm people could hear what you were saying. That kind of stuff doesn't get forgotten, especially by the company I work for."

"Which is...?"

If Juri had a working heart in that spectral body of hers, Adon would have been able to hear it beating away.

"Cipher Cybernetics," Juri answered in less than a second. It was a company Adon had never heard of before, but there were millions of things he was ignorant of, so he pushed away his suspicion. "We're not Shadaloo, but... We know things others don't."

"I see. Not exactly paragons of virtue I take it, but no company or corporation really is." Adon relaxed his posture and held the Feng Shui Engine close. The threat of Adon chucking the orb and Juri's soul far off into the jungle had passed, much to the Korean's relief. "So... you know how to get the Raging Demon?"

"Mhmm, and where too. All without going through Akuma to get it."

Any fighter worth their weight would have jumped at the challenge. To defeat a worthy foe and take their power, whether metaphorically or literally, sounded as poetic as life could be. It was to be expected, even. But Adon knew his limits, and despite his pride urging him to find that demonic fighter for a one-on-one fight for the ages, there was little chance of him winning, let alone surviving the encounter. Jaguars were as clever as they were powerful, and they weren't above scavenging for their meals. Adon had to back down and play it safe, and so he paid attention to what Juri had to say.

"Could you elaborate?" he urged.

"I think I've said enough already," Juri muttered, "but I'll let you off with this: Shadaloo has the most information on it, but Bison has no plan whatsoever of putting it to use."

That sounded odd to Adon. Though Bison had paraded his Psycho Power around as the most powerful thing on earth, he had been utterly defeated by Akuma's Raging Demon. For a crazy megalomaniac with the resources to resurrect himself, the experience should have served as a wake-up call. And yet Shadaloo hadn't made any moves- that Adon knew of- to show that they were weaponizing the Raging Demon or the Satsui no Hado that it came from, so this came off as believable. Perhaps the maniac still thought of the Raging Demon as a petty trinket that paled in comparison to his Psycho Power.

"Arrogant fool," Adon scoffed after a brief, contemplative pause. "He's too blinded by his own radiance to see the true treasure before him." Despite being in a much better position that Juri was, the man's eyes gleamed with greed. Juri had him hooked, and he had no clue. "How do I get it?"

Juri placed her hands on her hips and shook her head.

"You don't. Not without my help."

Adon sighed.

"And what will it take to get your help?"

"Well, other than this crazy, ghostly form I'm rocking, I don't have a body." Juri took a step forward and growled. "I like my body. I want... my body."

"There wasn't a body in that bunker, woman."

"Juri, and I know that. After the explosion, Shadaloo rushed inside to scuttle the place as best as they could before the cops got there. I saw them pull out Bison's body and mine, so I can only assume they've got me hidden away somewhere in Thailand." Juri caught Adon's skepticism and silenced it before he could open his mouth. "Yes, I saw it. Saw a lot of things while my eye was tangled up in wires."

"No, not that. 'Somewhere in Thailand'," Adon repeated. "You don't know where exactly?"

"Oh, I have a few ideas. Bangkok, for instance. Might be a bunker or two hidden away in there. Ultimately, you and I are gonna figure out where they're keeping me."

"Or what's left of you."

With the current conflict having come to a close and with Adon and Juri having formed a shaky, bizarre alliance, the two turned their backs to the jungle and headed back into the Thai's home. It was then that the Korean expressed genuine disgust in response to Adon's comment. She assured both him and herself that her body, while mangled from the explosion, was in one piece. Juri didn't elaborate, though it was clear from how she hesitated and looked away from Adon that the memory was still fresh in her mind. There was talk of what would happen once Juri was reacquainted with her physical form, or if it still existed after three months, but in the end she brushed the conversation aside and noted that she would tackle that problem once they got there.

"Just thinking of what Bison could be doing to my body makes my skin crawl." Now it was Adon's turn to give Juri an incredulous look. "Shut up. You know what I mean."

"You had better not be lying to me about the Raging Demon," the man replied.

"Now why would I lie about that? There are good odds that wherever my body is being kept, it'll be a research facility, and from there, finding something we weren't supposed to oughta be a cinch."

"And you think you're worthwhile enough to share a building with that kind of power?"

"Trust me, buddy," Juri chuckled as she moved to the front door. "You don't wanna be on the receiving end of one of my kicks. Now, if you're done asking questions, let's get-"

Another batch of dull thuds echoed from beyond the front door. Sagat was at the door again, and unlike the last time, Adon was ready for him. To his credit, the man tried to ignore the knocking in the hopes that Sagat would walk away or, in a perfect world, drop dead at the front steps from the crushing weight of his humiliation. Alas, the knocking continued to the point where Adon's patience ran dry. Juri believed that this was Sagat as well, but as Adon went to open the door, a sharp, foreboding chill shot up her spine and urged her to reconsider. She opened her mouth to warn Adon only to hold her tongue and duck out of sight.

"This shouldn't take more than a minute," Adon barked over his shoulder, oblivious to Juri's own concealment. He cracked his knuckles, cocked a grin and opened the door. "There's no fool like an old fool, and you… you…"

Three men stood there on the front steps to Adon's home. The second and third wore matching gray uniforms with metal pauldrons and shinguards reinforcing them along with bleak, imposing helmets. Their stares were cold yet meek considering how low their helmets sat upon their heads. The first man was far more imposing than the two nondescript mooks. Dressed in the same uniform as his peers behind him, the differences came from the leather gloves, polished black boots and stout garrison cap that sat upon a disgusting, fat face. Adon was drawn to the false smile on the man's lips and felt the urge to slam the door in his face as well, but then he noticed something even more unsettling about them all.

An emblem of a skull flanked by wings was pinned to the chests and headgear of these three men.


	3. Playing with Dolls

"Good morning!" The fat-faced grunt's smile grew wider. Adon wrinkled his nose as he noticed the man's sweat. "You must be Mr. Adon, right?"

"Who's asking?"

"Do I really have to say it? You know who we are, and more importantly, they know who we are too."

Fatso gestured behind him for Adon to look over his shoulder. From his front door the red-haired Thai could see two black cargo vans parked a few yards away from his property. With there not being a dedicated road for vehicles in this quaint village, one of the vans had to park right over the broken remains of some unfortunate villager's fence. A couple dozen villagers had come out of their homes to see what all the fuss was about, but they soon stood rigid with fear and anticipation when their curiosity was met with masked stares from more uniformed men. Like the villainous oppressors they were, four Shadaloo goons looked over the crowd of gawking villagers and held their various tools and weapons in hand.

Three of those four men were carrying stun batons that looked like they could incapacitate an elephant while the final goon cradled an honest-to-god flamethrower complete with bulky gas tanks and a lit pilot light. With all the wood and thatch roofs, all it would take for the village to burn to cinders would be a quick pull of the trigger. The villagers looked over at Adon; some seemed on the verge of tears while others were putting on brave faces, though the proud man could tell they were glaring at him for having brought Shadaloo here. Nobody wanted their livelihoods turned to ash because of the local hothead's bonehead mistake.

To make things worse, Sagat was in the crowd as well. Towering above the villagers with his arms folded, he turned his one eye over to Adon and shook his head. With his size and strength the old tiger could easily take the four men forming a blockade in front of him, and while said men looked uneasy and intimidated by the man's stature, Sagat wasn't making any moves to interfere. This wasn't his business, but if things got heated, Sagat wouldn't hesitate to crush some heads so long as Adon's was one of them.

"I've never met Sagat in person before. He's a real stand-up guy from what I've heard. Good with kids." Fatso waved to Sagat only to receive a death glare. He chuckled and turned back to Adon. "I oughta get an autograph from him after this and maybe a tour of this beautiful little village. That is unless there's a village left, but I guess that's up to you, buddy."

"What do you want?" Adon growled.

"Why don't we head inside and have a little chat?"

Adon drummed his fingers on the door and contemplated slamming it against Fatso's head, yet in the end he figured it would be wiser to give in for the time being. He stepped back and swung his arm out towards his living room to welcome his guests in. Fatso and his two friends stopped in the dining room and looked over bits of broken pottery and overturned, cracked chairs for a moment before moving to more comfortable spots. Even with their helmets perched right on the bridge of their nose, the two nameless goons were eerily perceptive and went about searching Adon's home without any invitation whatsoever.

"Looks like someone made a mess in here," Fatso mused aloud as he picked up a dining chair and sat down at the table. Adon stood in front of the man with a defiant frown on his lips and said nothing in response. "Rough night, huh? Come on Adon, grab a chair and take a load off."

As much as Adon wanted to stay standing in case things went from bad to worse, he knew that he wasn't in the best position. Plus, if that glint of metal resting in Fatso's holster meant what he thought it meant, he didn't want to take any chances. He sat down in front of the Shadaloo elite and waited for him to speak again.

"So... You and I are both busy men, am I right? So let's not beat around the bush here." Fatso pulled out a slim tablet from one of the pockets in his uniform and started tapping on the surface. "Yesterday night we noticed that one of our abandoned bunkers came back online after... How long ago, Jeffrey?"

"About three months, sir, give or take a week," replied a goon as he pawed through one of Adon's kitchen drawers.

"Three months. And- this is just good fortune on our part- before we lost our connection with the bunker, we got to see some interesting footage."

Having said that, the fat-faced Shadaloo elite turned his tablet over to Adon and started up a video. It was a choppy yet clear recording of the redheaded Thai standing in the blasted, charred remains of the Shadaloo bunker's generator room The camera footage followed him as he scurried out of the room, even going so far as capturing the exact moment his boot smacked against the recording surveillance camera during his escape. To make matters worse, Fatso swiped the video away and showed a close-up of the Feng Shui Engine in Adon's hand before he had the chance to tuck it into his pocket.

"That surveillance camera..."

"Mmm-Hmm!" Fatso took his tablet back and chuckled. "Man, I love Shadaloo cameras. We've got a hell of a lot of them around, and they're all super advanced tech." He clasped his hands together and looked up towards his two subordinates as they came back to flank Adon. They shook their heads and shrugged. "So, now that we've got that out of the way, maybe you could uh... Oh you know, hand it over?"

"Hand what over?"

"You saw the close-up. You know what I'm talking about."

"You're going to have to be more specific."

Fatso and his goons closed in on Adon like hyenas to a lion.

"Don't be difficult, Mr. Adon," Fatso growled once his pleasant facade dropped. He jabbed one of his sausage link fingers towards Adon. "You took Shadaloo property, and we want it back. Now, up until this moment I've been patient and pleasant, and so have the men out there. Personally, I don't want to strike a match and do anything rash, but at the same time, I've got a job to do. And let's face it, you have no idea what you picked up, so what's the deal, huh?"

"Maybe I don't care for Shadaloo, or you," Adon replied, flippant yet calm. "And maybe... I don't have whatever the hell you're looking for. Maybe I dropped it somewhere in the jungle. Did you ever stop to consider all that?"

"I don't think you realize the gravity of the situation."

When diplomacy was starting to fail, usually a show of force did the trick. Fatso shook his head, sighed and reached for the metal concealed in his holster. While Adon did realize just how deep he was, he wasn't about to hand over the Feng Shui Engine anytime soon, and especially not when that agonizing spectre, Juri, could be instrumental in helping him get his hands on the Raging Demon. So self-absorbed in his own quest for power, Adon wouldn't have cared too much if a few houses had to burn. But first, if Fatso was going to resort to violence, then so would Adon.

Before Adon could form a plan, his thoughts were interrupted when he caught a glimpse of a purple, spectral hand creeping out from underneath the dining table towards Fatso's chair. The two goons flanking Adon were oblivious to this; they were far too busy cracking their knuckles, rolling their shoulders and doing anything else that could up their intimidation factor. It appeared that Juri had hidden under the dining table, but angled in such a way that she was spread tight against the bottom with about four inches of surface overlap to conceal her frame. Adon ignored the glint of Fatso's unholstered, common sidearm and looked on, impressed, as Juri grasped the edge of the Shadaloo elite's chair.

"Now get up and turn out your pockets," Fatso demanded.

"You first."

With great force Juri flipped Fatso up and out of his chair only for him to soar against a nearby wall with a sickening crash. Adon jumped to his feet and swung an elbow into the face of one of the goons behind him as Juri fell and slid out from under the table to get into the fight. Confined to such close quarters, Juri resorted to more brutish methods of fighting and pounced Fatso; she straddled his waist and, with a hand keeping his pistol down and out of play, she began to pepper his face with quick punches. Adon had to pause in his thrashing to look on in awe, as it seemed that Juri could focus her energy and make her form corporeal for awhile, or perhaps she was super-effective against Shadaloo goons.

Either way, Adon figured the warm, whirring Feng Shui Engine in his pocket was to thank for this.

"Boss! He's got the eye!" cried one of the goons before Adon smashed his nose. "Augh!"

"Yes, yes I kn-" Juri cut off Fatso with a downward fist to his noggin, complete with a comical clunk and girlish yelp of pain. "G-get her off me!"

Shadaloo was not to be taken lightly. Their notoriety had been well-earned through years upon years of nefarious deeds and crimes against humanity, their elite members were powerful sociopaths and their technology was as intimidating as it was outrageous and insidious at the best of times. However, as was the rule for major evil organizations, the minions were not the most competent. No matter how protected their uniforms were, how brutal and efficient their weaponry or how imposing they looked in great numbers, a mere schoolgirl imitating karate moves could easily take out a whole squad of Shadaloo mooks if they gave their all. And while these goons seemed to be cut from a different cloth, Adon had no trouble knocking them around.

The Muay Thai prodigy kicked, punched and tore into the two Shadaloo goons before one wayward kick sent one flying against his front door and took it down. The four backup grunts outside whirled around in alarm to see Adon stumbling out of his home over the unconscious body of one of their comrades. Three glanced at one another and nodded before, as one, they brought up their stun batons and rushed in to poach the jaguar, leaving the fourth grunt with the flamethrower to turn his attention back to the villagers and tantalizing, flammable materials. Adon half-expected Sagat to leap into the fray and try to steal the spotlight, but the old tiger was wise and reasonable; he instead ushered the villagers away from the fight and kept them from doing anything rash. Again, this wasn't Sagat's fight, but now Adon found himself wanting the old fool to make himself a target...

You know, just so Adon could rush in and crush that flamethrower grunt's skull in from behind while Sagat became the new effigy for Burning Man.

"Dibs on the pyro!"

Like a cat scuttling underfoot, Juri came dashing out of the house, blew past Adon and rammed her way through the three goons on a collision course with the Shadaloo pyro. Naturally, the potential pyromaniac had a panic attack upon seeing the spectral woman and squirmed about trying to get his flamethrower up and ready. He managed to get off a quick spurt of hellfire towards Juri, but in his haste and panic he misjudged where it would go. Liquid fire splashed over one of the black cargo vans and engulfed it, though it was fortunate that this one was nowhere near any other flammable materials or buildings. In hindsight, it was also fortunate that this van had no-one hiding in it, unlike the other one.

"Easy there fireball," Juri giggled as she slid up against the pyro with a leg cocked against her chest. She lashed out and kicked the man in the head to send him facedown in the dirt with his helmet rocketing off into the distance. "What the- Oh come on!" The Korean stood over the knocked out pyromaniac and huffed. "Where does Bison find you idiots? I've kicked schoolgirls hardier than you!"

A stun baton was jabbed into her back, but rather than fill her body with a million volts of pain and destruction, the weapon phased through her spectral form and appeared out from the center of her chest. Not having a body meant not feeling pain from such physical weapons, but that wasn't to say that Juri was completely invulnerable. She seized up and stumbled to the side as the electric current took her for a brief, disorienting ride before she recovered enough to swing her body against the idiotic grunt who attacked her. Like a great wind, Juri's fist collided and swept through the grunt's head without causing much harm other than making the grunt see stars.

Baffled, Juri took a look at her arms and noticed that her form, once filled out with dark violet color, looked lighter and more hollow. She was incorporeal once again, but only for a moment until Adon darted into her line of sight. Buffeted by two stun baton grunts at once, the Muay Thai prodigy had to resort to backpedaling in order to keep his distance. Juri could see the glow of her eye burning a hole in the man's pocket and felt power flow back into her form the closer he came, and soon she figured she was corporeal again. It appeared that she could maintain a corporeal form so long as Adon, or rather her eye, was in close proximity. There was little time to investigate this further for Juri soon felt a firm punch from a goon slam into her cheek.

She recoiled, massaged her jaw and glared back at the grunt who did it.

"Not cool," Juri growled before lashing out.

Adon, oblivious to the biblical beatdown now occurring behind him, put his foot down and retaliated against the two grunts ganging up on him. When a stun baton missed his head by mere inches, he snapped back with a leg sweep to send one goon to the ground, then he turned to grapple and eventually pummel the other down there as well. Sometime in the scuffle he managed to get his hands on one of the stun batons, but he would be damned if he resorted to using the weapon in the fight. Adon swung the thing over his shoulder and jumped back into the fray with his sharp elbows and knees doing the most damage, and soon he had two Shadaloo losers moaning, groaning and writhing at his feet.

Another grunt flopped onto the makeshift pile of bodies as Juri made a show of dusting off her hands and shoulders nearby.

"Well, that's interesting."

"What?"

"Apparently I can't get too far away from you without going unstable, or something."

"Woman, you look unstable now," Adon droned. "And having you close to me, whether it helps you or not, is just a disaster waiting to happen."

"You think I wanted this to happen?" Juri countered. She gestured to the writhing goons around her and then patted her chest. "Believe me, this ain't some clever ploy to watch over you 24/7. Like I said, you're not getting what you want without my help, so learn to be a team player or-"

The twosome's bickering came to an abrupt end when the Shadaloo elite, Fatso, came crawling out of Adon's home shouting. Both Adon and Juri looked on in morbid curiosity and fiendish delight as the man, beaten, bloody and defenseless without his cute little pistol, dug into one of his uniform's many pockets for what Adon assumed to be an inhaler. His sadistic smile faded when he realized that it was a whistle, and once that shrill sound pierced through the air, he soon became aware of the other, untouched Shadaloo cargo van that had been shaking with activity. The backdoors were kicked open and, like trained attack dogs, two women came darting out.

These weren't ordinary Shadaloo goons, and Adon knew it. Dressed in tight, form-fitting blue uniforms with red gauntlets and black combat boots, standing before the twosome were two of the infamous twelve Shadaloo dolls. Though both women looked near-identical and were perhaps sisters, the one with a quarterstaff had long, braided black hair with odango buns while the other woman with a nunchaku had sleek and sharp black locks. As if their weaponry wasn't enough to convince Adon that they weren't ordinary mooks, the man could see faint violet energies radiating off of their red gauntlets.

Fatso waved at them from his pained position.

"Xiayu! Jianyu! Kill them!" he cried.

"Yes sir!"

Before the two dolls began to advance upon them, Adon happened to glance over at Juri and was confused at her reaction. Given how she fought the previous Shadaloo goons and acted around him, he expected her to grin and lick her lips at the promise of a fight. Instead, Juri looked flabbergasted. It was as if she was looking at a polar bear in the jungle; she clearly knew who and what the women were, but she seemed dumbfounded as to why they were here. Adon didn't get the opportunity to call out and speak some sense into her before a quarterstaff darted towards his head.

The man ducked to the side just in time to avoid the quarterstaff, but he underestimated the speed and strength of the attacker and felt his legs fall out from underneath him from a leg sweep. Adon ate the dirt without anything to sweeten the meal. Rather than stay there for some painful dessert, he rolled over, sprang back to his feet and lashed out at Jianyu with a few jabs. All of his attacks either missed the doll or were deflected and countered with a light smack from her quarterstaff, and once Adon began to lose his patience, Jianyu got comfortable keeping him at a fair distance.

This would have been the eventual end for any other Muay Thai practitioner, but Adon was as clever as he was acrobatic.

"Jaguar Kick!"

He flipped over a horizontal slash and slammed his heel down towards Jinayu's head. Though the strike was blocked by the quarterstaff held securely above the doll, the limber woman didn't have the raw strength required to hold it in the face of Adon's power. The staff, and Jianyu's arms by extension, was pushed down just enough to offer Adon a few clean shots at her face. An elbow to the chin followed a few quick jabs before Jianyu stumbled to the side in a stunned stupor. Like an animal, Adon smelled blood and was eager to rush in with a decisive blow. He drew his body back like a coiled spring and unleashed the energy with a fierce roundhouse.

Before he could connect with Jianyu, the doll either dodged or fell to the side just far enough for her sister, Xiayu, to come in from behind with a flying kick right to Adon's chest.

"W-what the- Why?!" Adon recoiled and gasped for breath even as his chest pulsed in agony. He looked up and past Xiayu and Jianyu to see Juri running over as if she had just gotten up from bed. "Not good enough, are you?"

"Shut up," Juri barked.

"Couldn't even give me a warning?"

"I said shut up!"

Though Adon and Juri were powerful fighters, against two Shadaloo dolls who knew how to work together they were at a clear disadvantage. Whenever Xiayu overextended with her nunchaku, Jianyu was quick to jump in and protect her. Whenever Jianyu's guard threatened to break, Xiayu battered the aggressor away. Adon and Juri even managed to get in each other's way more times than they cared to count. If there was an opening, one of the two ruined it for the other, and if one was getting focused upon, the other hung back and seemingly let it happen. Eventually, the two had enough of being embarrassed by two brainwashed girls and decided to pair up.

"Ready to pull your head outta your ass?"

The hotheaded Thai shot Juri a sideways glance.

"Care to rephrase that?"

"You heard me. We're gonna have to work together here."

"Jaguars are proud creatures," Adon insisted. "They pref-"

"They prefer to hunt alone. Yeah, I got it. I played that game." Juri caught the confused look on Adon's face and, as much as it pained her to do so, she decided not to elaborate. Instead, she gestured back to the dolls. "Tell you what; I'll follow your lead, alright?"

It wasn't what Adon wanted to hear, but he didn't have much choice in the matter. Begrudgingly he accepted the circumstances before him and gave Juri a nod of his head before stepping back into the fray. The two dolls doubled-down on their assault after allowing the two to put their heads together and struck as one, but this time Adon and Juri were ready for them. The two focused on either disarming or limiting the dolls' reach with their weaponry and smacked them around with quick counters whenever they got too aggressive. At first this success proved minor, but as Adon and Juri learned to complement each other with better efficiency, the strikes soon began to stack and become harder and more potent.

The two Chinese dolls, now on the ropes, directed their attention away from Juri to focus on Adon. They tried to corner him against an exterior wall, but like hunters closing in on a cornered animal, they soon realized the error of their ways. Juri caught the glint in Adon's eye and moved in to distract the girls with a low-sweeping arc of purple ki energy followed by another at a higher angle. Both Xianyu and Jianyu steeled themselves against the projectiles instead of moving aside. They didn't want to give Adon a window of opportunity, but they had already pushed the acrobatic fighter against a wall, and thus the fight had been decided right then and there.

Springing up into the air, Adon launched himself off that wall down towards the closest doll. Jianyu's quarterstaff went flying out of her hands as the Muay Thai fighter slammed into her back with a well-placed kick, or as Adon exclaimed, his Jaguar Tooth. Juri, not to be outdone, closed in on Xianyu in the confusion and tore that damned nunchaku out from her hands with a string of heavy kicks. Disarmed and defenseless, the two dolls found themselves at the mercy of a cruel jaguar and sadistic spider for a few seconds before their battered, beaten, unconscious bodies fell to the ground in a crumpled heap.

It wasn't a flawless victory as evidenced by Adon's bloody lip and Juri's pained, withdrawn stature, but it was a victory nonetheless.

"That's that," Adon sighed. "I'm not too proud to admit it- these two are good."

"Shadaloo Dolls aren't pushovers," Juri chimed in, looming over the two girls. She pointed to the red gauntlets that were still glimmering with faint violent energies. "Look at that. Either losing my body made me weaker or those Psycho Powered gloves made them stronger."

"Won't make a difference once I get my hands on the Raging Demon. Psycho Power will be nothing more than a cute parlor trick compared to what I'll be capable of." Adon wiped his lip and spat on the ground. Then he turned towards Juri. "Taekwondo?" he surmised.

The Korean nodded in reply.

"I noticed. Not bad, though it looked more like wild flailing at times."

"Wow, thanks," Juri scoffed.

As the skirmish had come to a close, Adon noticed that the whirring, vibrating eye of power in his pocket had calmed down. In comparison, Juri herself looked at ease, though from the way she was looking at the unconscious Shadaloo goons and dolls around her, there was still cause for activity and concern. It would be better to kill the grunts and those two dolls as they laid there defenseless, but Adon, in good conscience, could not bring himself to deliver any final blows. A king did not dirty his hands with the blood of defeated foes, and especially not within his home village where his congregation could look on and judge. Juri, on the other hand, had nothing holding her back from killing the grunts.

Such a one-sided massacre didn't come to pass, for soon Fatso, the Shadaloo elite who held Xianyu and Jianyu's metaphorical leashes, was caught trying to escape. He had almost gotten to the wheel of the untouched cargo van when Juri swept up from behind and grasped his shoulder to pull him away. The bulging, wide-eyed look and high-pitched shriek of pure terror was totally worth it.

"Hey big boy, where do you think you're waddlin' off to?"

The Shadaloo elite let out a string of slurred expletives and incoherent explanations before Juri shut him up with a jab to his side.

"Quit squirming, and for your sake, don't you dare wet yourself," Juri growled with a wry smile.

"Please, lemme go. I don't know anything."

Adon gestured to the two dolls lying on the ground a few feet away.

"Oh really? You ought to know something important if you have two Shadaloo Dolls at your beck and call." Juri shoved Fatso against the van while Adon came up close. "But even if you don't, you're going to pay for disrespecting me in my own home. So how about we-"

A muffled explosion from nearby cut Adon and Juri off. Surprised, the two peeked around the side of the van only to have smoke rush into their faces. A big plume of obscuring smoke had gone off from a cleverly-designed decoy bomb in one of the doll's possession, and with the distraction, the two Chinese dolls had fled the scene with their weaponry intact. Adon caught a glimpse of their blue uniforms as they dissolved into the jungle to the south, and at that moment he felt as if he was on borrowed time. Sputtering from the smoke, the two took a moment to compose themselves and make sense of what had just happened before getting back to Fatso.

"D-don't look at me," the fat man squeaked. "I didn't order them to-"

Juri battered him against the van once again to shut him up.

"You know, I wasn't planning on interrogating you at all. I was hoping to talk to your girlfriends- who are totally out of your league by the way- but now that they've run off to tell Bison, I'm gonna have to settle for you."

"What are you hoping to get from him?" Adon asked.

"I'm gonna figure out where those dolls came from," Juri replied with great conviction in her tone. "I've got a hunch that wherever they're running off to, we'll find my body there."

Through the chokehold Juri was exerting on Fatso, he managed to get out a few words.

"Gack... Y-you're really... Juri Han... You're supposed to be... be dead!"

"Yeah, well, karma's a bitch, ain't it?"

Sensing that Juri could use some privacy, Adon stepped aside as the woman dragged Fatso into the back of the cargo van and shut the doors behind her. The act was moot in that the van wasn't soundproof or subtle for an interrogation, but Adon wasn't about to put a stop to it. On the contrary, the way Juri's smile had twisted into a cruel sneer left the man feeling uneasy and unwilling to interfere even as Fatso started to squeal like a stuck pig in there. And yet at the same time Adon felt a jolt of excitement shoot up his spine.

There was a certain quality about Juri that the man couldn't quite place his finger on. Though he suspected that there was far more to Juri than what she chose to divulge, what he got was plenty enough to form a good opinion of her. She was frightening to her enemies, fought well enough despite her obvious condition and wasn't afraid to bicker and fight with Adon. Though that last bit tended to land anyone else in a hospital or knocked out in the streets, for Adon he wasn't too proud to admit that he found some entertainment in it all. Hell, Juri's lip, as disrespectful as it was, even earned a smidgen of Adon's respect. This was a woman who knew how to fight- no, a woman who enjoyed it!

Maybe this power trip of Adon's wouldn't be as bad as he initially believed!


	4. Vandals

For Pai and its many villagers, the Shadaloo storm had passed. People inched out from their homes and shot worried glances here and there before sighing in relief as they realized that they were safe once more. They checked for any damages the goons might have caused, ascertained that everyone was accounted for and grabbed buckets of water to start dousing the fire churning on that one van. Sagat, who had shepherded the villagers back to their homes once he heard the fighting die down, helped to organize the firefighting even if it didn't stand to harm the villager's homes. No-one wanted to have black soot fall down on them or to have the burning wreck mar their idyllic village.

Before that, some villagers wondered what would happen if they nudged the fiery van towards Adon's home. Sagat was tempted to oblige, but he shook his head and whipped the group into shape.

Adon chose wisely by not lifting a finger to help. He had done far enough attracting Shadaloo to the village, and by resorting to violence when things had reached a fever pitch, he may have well gone and made things worse for everyone. Again, the storm had passed, but there could always be another one to swoop in while the villagers were unprepared. The least that the man did was gather up the writhing, groaning Shadaloo grunts and tie them up while Juri had her fun with Fatso in the back of the van. He also rooted around in their pockets for anything of use, but other than a few grocery lists and framed photos of pets Adon found nothing interesting.

He was anxious to get going on this little adventure. Just having the villagers' eyes upon him was irritating enough, but once he felt Sagat's piercing, one-eyed gaze Adon started to get just a little paranoid. He figured that the giant had seen Juri scurrying about during the fight and believed he would step in to ask questions, and if he asked the right ones, eventually he would realize what Adon's ulterior motives for helping the woman out were. The Raging Demon would be Adon's, and neither Shadaloo nor Sagat would stand in his way of obtaining it. Same applied to Juri if she decided to turn on him before he obtained that power, but Adon sincerely hoped that she was smarter than that.

"Playtime's over," Juri chirped after opening the back doors of the cargo van. She dragged out her Shadaloo Elite prisoner and dropped him off with the other grunts, all of which let loose muffled cries of fear when they noticed her spectral form looming over them like death incarnate. "Aw, pipe down. I'm not gonna kill any of you."

"It would be safer to do so."

The spectral woman grinned at Adon's comment and nodded.

"Totally. But in front of all these people? That ain't kosher." Juri turned back to her squirming, captive audience and waved her hand over them. "Na… It's better to let 'em live."

Adon felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end from Juri's accompanying giggle.

"So, what did you get from him?" Adon asked as he pointed to Fatso quietly sobbing away.

"Don't worry, I asked him things you would have asked him, but we'll talk about that later. Let's get on the road first. You got what you need for the trip?"

"What would I need? A weapon, a utility vest filled with ammunition, rations and a map and compass?" The arrogant jaguar scoffed. "Please… I have every bit of confidence in my abilities."

"A good mindset to have when Shadaloo doesn't shy away from using guns and flamethrowers."

"Any extraordinary weapon can turn into a worthless tool in the hands of the incompetent," Adon proclaimed.

"Well, alright, good for you. There's some boxes and other packaged stuff back here," Juri replied with an affectionate pat on the back of the black van. "Maybe we'll find something of use in 'em. You know, just in case." She snickered at the thought before turning towards the front left side of the van. "Now get in and buckle up, 'cuz I'm driving this fat boy."

Adon was confused by why she went around the left side, and soon, so too was Juri. She stopped, looked into the front cab and expressed her bewilderment with a high-pitched grunt.

"On second thought, why don't you drive?"

"You don't know how to drive on the left side of the road, do you?"

"Nope. I thought only the Brits and Japanese drove on the left."

"Fair enough," Adon muttered with a shrug of his shoulders. He reached over, opened the passenger-side door and cocked his head towards the seat as he moved around the front to get behind the wheel on the other side. "Get in. The sooner we leave this place, the better."

Though this was Adon's home, he had overstayed his welcome by bringing Shadaloo here. He made himself comfortable in the driver's seat, checked that the van had enough gas or petrol and, once Juri had slipped in beside him, he revved up the engine and started to back out. And yet, just as he was about to slide into drive and head out on this little adventure, a massive hand landed on the driver's door as Sagat peered through the window at his pupil.

Both Adon and Juri jumped a little in their seats at the initial thud before Adon, sensing no ill will from his disgraced teacher, rolled down the window.

"Going somewhere?" Sagat asked.

"That's no concern of yours."

"Hmm." The giant's gaze shifted to the spectral woman on the passenger seat. Juri returned his gaze with a raise of her eyebrows. "Off on a spiritual journey, I suppose. Stranger things have happened over the years, though I wonder..."

"Do you have something to say, or are you just going to take up space on the side of this van?" Adon spat.

At times Adon was amazed by Sagat's restraint. Lesser men would have taken a shot at him by now, but Sagat? The old tiger just chuckled and patted the side of the van.

"Fine. Go. Enjoy walking that twisted path of yours while we clean up your mess."

A cutting remark sat on the tip of Adon's tongue, but he chose not to fire it off. Instead, he rolled the window up on Sagat's face and drove off. The noble, honorable part of him wanted to tell the villagers that his departure would give them some security, or that heading towards one of Shadaloo's many dens might dissuade them from stepping foot in Pai ever again, yet Adon thought more for himself than for them. He took to a dirt road leading through the jungle and sighed once the huts and villagers of Pai faded into the greenery behind him.

Juri, who still couldn't understand Thai, leaned over a bit.

"So… What did he say?" she asked.

"Nothing worthwhile."

"Well, if you hadn't driven off like that back there, I would have asked you to get an autograph for me."

Adon turned to glare at Juri.

"You had better be joking. That man's a disgrace." He put his eyes back on the dirt road and continued his train of thought with a huff. "Man… Not even a man. To call him a man would be-"

"I dunno, I've always looked up to Sagat," Juri interjected with a wave of her hand. "Well, maybe not like that, but I've always wanted to fight him. Dude's a legend back in-"

"If I hear one more word about Sagat I swear I'll find a way to throttle you."

At that Juri had to recoil and raise her hands in mock surrender. She, like anyone else, knew of the bad blood between the tiger and jaguar, but she had no idea how deep the animosity ran. If the two were to get along, the woman would have to avoid the topic.

"Alright, alright, jeez… Don't get so worked up over it."

"That's easy for you to say," Adon muttered in reply. "You don't know him like I do."

Silence brewed between the two. Though Adon implied he didn't want to talk about Sagat, in reality, he wanted someone to vent his frustrations to. The man longed for someone to understand where he came from, to understand why he felt the way he did. And yet here he was pushing Juri away, though that was a reasonable thing to do. He didn't know Juri, and though she seemed genuine and forthcoming enough with information, especially regarding the Raging Demon, he couldn't trust her with his deepest of convictions. Adon tightened his grip on the steering wheel and kept to himself while Juri did the same, though eventually, the two would have to speak to each other once again.

And the opportunity arose once the van reached an intersection.

"Where are we going?"

"We're gonna go south on Route 1095," Juri replied with a wave of her hand as if that was obvious.

"How long is this going to take?" Adon asked as he followed Juri's direction. He quickly interjected with another question before Juri could answer. "Nevermind. What did you ask that fat one?"

"Not so much 'asking' as it was 'demanding'. He tried to beat around the bush as much as he could, but in the end, he gave up a research facility to the south of some river research center. May… My Tang, I think he said."

"Mae Taeng?"

"Yeah, that. That sounds more like it." The spectral woman took a moment to root around in the glovebox and other containers. She found a thick map and fumbled with it before humming in delight. "Yes… Finally, something in English. Yep, Mae Taeng," Juri repeated, taking care to mock Adon's accent as she did so. The redheaded Thai let out a chuckle in reply. "Supposedly the facility is right on this river here. That's like, twenty miles or so. We should be there in no time."

"Two hours at least. This route can be a deathtrap, especially in the rain. What about security? Anything to worry about?"

"The usual evil hideout fare. Cameras, wire fencing, maybe a few guard dogs. Shadaloo tries to be discreet with their hideouts, so we shouldn't have to worry about turrets, mines or anything over-the-top. We'll see for ourselves once we get there."

Confined to their stolen Shadaloo van, the two continued to go over what Juri had learned from the pudgy elite she had interrogated. Though a Shadaloo elite's word meant very little compared to a crime boss' or shady, head researcher/scientist, Juri assured Adon that the information was solid. The man had confirmed that two very important bodies had come into the research facility, and as far as he knew, Juri's body was still in there, though for what purpose he had no idea. As for Bison, Fatso let slip that the vile villain was back amongst the living. It was to be expected for a megalomaniac who just wouldn't stay dead, yet it still made the two uneasy with the idea that he could be hanging around the facility.

The last thing the two talked about was the idea that Xiayu and Jianyu, the two Shadaloo Dolls, had fled back to the research facility that they came from.

"Those women back there… Those Dolls," Adon mused aloud. With his eyes on the road, he missed the way Juri grew tense and sat up straight in her seat. "What happened back there? You hesitated."

"I uh, I didn't expect to see them."

"What are you talking about? As far as I know, Shadaloo has always had those brainwashed attack dogs of theirs. As unassuming as they are, crossing paths with two of them, let alone one, is rumored to be a death sentence." He shook off the gravity of those previous words with a haughty chuckle. "Bah… Though I'm ever-so-honored that they came for you and me, they're not as imposing as rumor has it. Still, they're no pushovers."

"Actually," Juri murmured, her tone slow and cautious, "Shadaloo lost their twelve Dolls a while back. That's why I wasn't expecting to see them again."

"What? I didn't hear anything about that. Why weren't you expecting them?" Adon asked, missing the last word that Juri said.

"Have you heard of SIN?"

Adon nodded after a brief pause. He had heard of some organization called the Shadaloo Intimidation Network, but other than it being some kind of division of Shadaloo, he knew next to nothing about it. There were much more important things to worry about in his life than another crazy, evil organization running around and terrorizing the world.

"They serve as Shadaloo's weapons division; mostly R&D stuff."

"Yes, so I've heard… But I don't see what they have to do w-"

"About half a year ago, SIN splintered off from Shadaloo as their own organization," Juri explained. She sat back in her seat and put her feet up on the dashboard with her gaze focused on the skyline. "Supposedly, after Bison died- again- SIN made a mad grab for Shadaloo's many assets and captured their twelve Dolls for their own gain. When Bison came back, he was pissed. You take away an old pervert's brainwashed little girls? Yeah, that's not something he'll forgive."

When Adon didn't respond, Juri took that as a cue to continue.

"Now, if these Dolls are back in the hands of Shadaloo, then… Well, I guess SIN is, uh…"

"Liquidated, I suppose," Adon finished. "But… What does it all mean? What does it matter?"

"It matters because SIN would have been the ones to handle everything on the Raging Demon, and if they've been liquidated, that means Shadaloo definitely has it. Plus, if there are Dolls running around, that means they're guarding something important, and if my body isn't enough to warrant them, then I'm gonna bet my sweet ass that it's the Raging Demon." Snapping her fingers, Juri turned to Adon and managed a smile. "Ha! I saw that! You were worried for a second, yeah? Just goes to show there's a silver lining to-"

"How do you know all this?"

With all the information and exposition being tossed around, especially as juicy as it was, it was about time that Adon questioned its authenticity. In street fighting, let alone living in a remote village, investigating rumors and superstition was typically met with either a modest reward or a light consequence, as was the case with Adon investigating that ruined Shadaloo bunker yesterday night. But when it came to information on the organization hoarding the power he desired, and with Juri giving out such a heavy snippet that no-one but she could verify, Adon had to be cautious. Now was the time to question, lest this budding adventure turned out to be a fool's errand orchestrated by a manipulative shrew.

"How does some… some agent or whatever from a cybernetics company know all this?" Adon pressured as his eyes narrowed in scrutiny.

"Do you really want to know?" Juri countered. "Or are you just trying to know me better?"

When the van began to slow down and Adon pawed at the window controls, Juri took the hint.

"Okay, okay. Look, you've probably had some suspicions-"

"Several."

"And you're probably only helping me out because I'm a pretty face and you're really a good guy deep down-"

"Raging Demon."

"Raging Demon, right." The violet haze of a woman sighed, dipped her head against the dashboard for a moment to compose herself and then sat back in her seat like a socialite about to regale some commoner. "Alright. Like I said, I work for Cipher Cybernetics, but as a corporate agent of sorts. They make me test out new tech and facilitate deals with our clientele, among other things. We've had business with both SIN and Shadaloo in the past. I'm not- We're not proud of it, but it has given us valuable intel on them both."

To Juri's visible relief, Adon didn't toss her eye- and her by extension- out the window. Instead, he rolled the cab's window back up and punctuated the action with a smug yip.

"Yeah, ha ha ha... I take it was obvious I wasn't some goody-two-shoes from the moment you met me. But I figured telling you a half-truth was as good as I could do at that point."

"Everyone has their secrets," Adon replied with a chuckle. "Everyone has reasons for keeping them hidden. Now, ultimately I don't care if I have to fight more of those brainwashed girls if their presence means the power of the Raging Demon is near. What I do mind, however, is you not being straight with me, especially if you're withholding helpful information… or hopeful information."

Juri let that sink in before nodding her head with a soft huff of acknowledgment. Time seemed to trickle by even slower than before even as the warm morning sun transitioned into a hot afternoon blaze. Further conversations were either one-sided and lacked substance or nonexistent. In an attempt to lighten the mood and break up the monotony of tires churning against gravel and dirt, Juri tried to get the radio to work, but after nothing but static and foreign airwaves she flicked it off and groaned.

Sensing the boredom, Adon figured he had one more thing to wonder about.

"I get the feeling that you know Bison." When the response was nothing more than a disgusted glare, the man doubled back on his assumption. "No, that's not what I was getting at. I meant… There's a reason why you sought out Bison. You said it yourself, you wanted to kill him in cold blood. I'm just trying to…"

"...What?" Juri's eyes glowed in warning as she challenged Adon's curiosity. "Trying to figure out what Shadaloo did to this girl to make her swear revenge on that bastard? I bet you've already come up with something, so what do you care?"

Adon held Juri's gaze for a moment longer before exhaling and turning away.

"Forget it."

The ball for discomfort was back in Juri's court, and despite it being Adon who brought up the touchy subject, the spectral woman couldn't deny that she felt guilty for pushing him away.

"Well," Juri started after bearing the silence for half a minute, "to you or anyone else, it's not an original story. Shadaloo killed my parents and I swore revenge." Adon didn't reply, so Juri took that as evidence that he was listening. "I was fifteen at the time, and my father was a lawyer. He was instrumental in prosecuting notorious organized crime bosses and officials, but once he turned his sights on Shadaloo, they decided they didn't want the hassle and ordered him dead. My mother and I were in the car with him when gunfire rained inside. Could have been a mistake, a coincidence… But I did some digging and Shadaloo actually intended on killing us all.

"But I survived. Imagine that. Me, a scared little girl coming out of a coma with one eye and two closed caskets as her only family. People tried to help, sure, but it was the wrong kind. I didn't want pity or someone to understand, and I especially didn't want empty promises from the police. I wanted revenge, plain and simple, so I did whatever I could to get back at Shadaloo, even if it meant-" Juri paused, took a breath, then continued on. "Even if it meant having to lie, cheat, steal and kill. And I've done plenty of killing already." Her eyes narrowed as she focused on the horizon. "Bison's gonna die by my hand. It's only a matter of when and where."

Juri sat back and waited for the inevitable judgment calls, admonishments, and perhaps pity to come from Adon. She had poured out a fragment of her heart to him; not because she liked him or anything, but because he had the audacity to make her feel guilty. To think that Thailand's biggest asshole could make her feel this way was rather insulting, but worse was that Juri anticipated and expected him to denounce her as if he was better than her. But none of this came to pass. Instead, once the silence switched from awkward and tense to calm and insightful, Juri glanced over at Adon and saw him with a genuine smile.

"You had my curiosity at first, then my full attention." The Thai man took a moment away from focusing on the road to make eye-contact with Juri. His smile twisted into the usual arrogant version he was known for, but the authenticity was still there. "Now you have my respect."

"Respect?"

"Shadaloo took away your life, but you're taking it back piece by piece," Adon explained with a pumped fist for emphasis. "You've got a strong will and an even stronger spirit, and you wield them both to right the wrongdoings done upon you no matter the cost. How many people affected by Shadaloo can say the same?" He scoffed and turned back to the road ahead. "That nosy Interpol officer could learn a thing or two from you."

The spectral woman beamed at that and retorted with a chuckle.

"Really? Wow, that's… Yeah, yeah! I'm pretty awesome, huh? Though now I'm trying to take back my life in the literal sense!" Now the two shared a chuckle between them, and it was during that brief period that Juri had the feeling Adon actually cared about her. Well, about as much as one could care for a sadistic spectre having met a few hours before. "Hey. Thanks," Juri added with a friendly smile of her own. "Really. So uh… We cool?"

"We cool?" Adon repeated. He adopted a stupid, smug look about him and continued on with sarcasm laced in his tone. "I didn't realize we were getting hot and bothered enough to warrant 'cooling off'."

"God, you really are a nerd."

* * *

The trip finally came to an end once the van crossed over a small bridge just before the Mae Taeng River Research Center. Adon expressed concerns that Shadaloo could be watching them, that they had been on surveillance footage the whole trip and would be expecting the two to approach the hidden research facility. It was a reasonable concern given Shadaloo's resources and petty vindictiveness. Juri encouraged Adon to not give Shadaloo more credit than what they deserved and advised him down a dirt path that cut into the jungle. She noted that the evil organization had a hilariously horrible memory, and should they get any indication of them approaching, they would assume that they were one of theirs.

The black Shadaloo van was the perfect infiltration vehicle here, even if it now felt like a fat, top-heavy lard on dangerous, ever-eroding terrain.

"Stop," Juri ordered once a piece of dark steel slipped into sight. "Back up a little, just enough to get outta sight. We're here."

After obliging her order, Adon disembarked from the van, stretched and sighed and then went with the woman to scout out whatever it was that had her feeling cautious.

The two pawed their way through the jungle, enough to put a little bit of distance between them and the van, before coming up to a raised cliff overlooking a depressed chunk of land where the dirt road ended. In that chunk of land shrouded by vegetation locked in a battle for sunlight was the Shadaloo research facility, or at least the entrance to it. At first glance, it looked to be a military installation, but in Adon's experience, the military made it painfully obvious. This building, the size of a fire department and sporting two large bay doors, had the Shadaloo winged-skull emblem front and center while a fortified perimeter consisting of chain link fencing and a checkpoint kept potential trespassers and animals from getting in.

With two guards manning the checkpoint and a few cameras swiveling about at the lightning-fast pace of an obese sloth covered in molasses, the entrance looked vulnerable to Adon.

"See those air units?" Juri gestured to a set of dull grey boxes settled on concrete a stone's throw from the checkpoint. Amongst the gentle whirring of machinery was the low hum of a row of generators, those being twice as tall and half as wide as the air units settled in their shadow. "Look at that setup. Perfect for an underground facility."

"Not very well-defended," the jaguar warrior grumbled.

Whereas many would mistake the man's tone for skepticism, Juri could detect that he was more disappointed than critical. She couldn't help but grin and agree with him.

"Yeah… I wanna curbstomp some dweebs too," Juri chuckled. "This is just a decoy. The real threat lies within, and you can bet that once an alarm is tripped, a whole gaggle of guards is gonna come running out." She pointed back to the two large bay doors beyond the checkpoint and continued with her examination. "We find a way in there, we find a way underground."

There was another way of getting into the facility and the two of them knew it. The air units had an odd duck amongst them in the form of a ventilation shaft of sorts. If stealth was their forte and they wanted to avoid a fight, the two could slip in there undetected like a snake. Juri was limber and Adon was flexible despite his build, so there would be no trouble. However, the two expressed their disdain with the idea. Juri's bloodlust was building and Adon's pride forbade him from slinking around, even if that was his animal's strong suit.

If the power he lusted after was indeed in this underground facility, Adon wouldn't obtain it by cowardly sneaking about until he stumbled on it. He was the Emperor of Muay Thai and he was going to make an entrance worthy of that title.

"I say we head in through the front like we own the place," Adon outlined with an arrogant hiss. "Anyone foolish enough to get in our way deserves swift and brutal vengeance."

"I like the sound of that," Juri cooed with an excited quiver in her tone. She then reached out and clasped Adon on the shoulder to keep him from kicking off on a path towards the facility. "Hold on. I got an idea to soften them up a little… And make one hell of an entrance."

Interested, Adon went with Juri back to the black Shadaloo van and looked on as she pulled open the back doors to slide inside. During a prolonged moment of silence in the trip, Juri had crawled back to the cargo area to investigate the boxes and packaged, Shadaloo brand goods that had been tempting her since the beginning. She pushed away boxes of inconsequential supplies and nudged spare uniforms aside to pull out a heavy, large container with multiple safety warnings plastered over its surface. Two complete gas tanks, fitted for use on a flamethrower goon's back, were unboxed and placed in the center of the van's bed like a prized artifact, or more aptly, like Little Boy in the Enola Gay's hold.

Juri's eyes glowed with anticipation and, when she neither heard nor saw any objections from Adon, she plucked at the wiring of one gas tank and gave it an affectionate pat. The little gesture would have been just that- a gesture- had it not been for a few violet sparks of ki energy that came from it. The gift had been wrapped up and was set to blow. Giggling like a mad bomber, Juri dashed out from the back of the van and, after getting Adon's help, the two of them shoved the van down the road and watched it creep over the crest of the hill before it took a dive and picked up speed.

"That oughta leave them fuming," Adon commented dryly before Juri pulled him into the jungle.

Under the cover of thick jungle foliage, the two crept close to the research facility all the while the van teetered towards the unaware guards with a hot hello brewing up within...


	5. Finale

Calm, cool jazz drifted from the speakers of a ratty old boombox as it sat in the comically small security checkpoint of the Shadaloo research facility. Tired of taking turns suffocating in the little booth with only a tiny desk fan to keep them cool, the two front guards brought out a card table, a couple of chairs and a pack of cards. They were sitting at their flimsy table under the shade of the jungle canopy, next to the checkpoint, and they were content. Though it was hot and humid there in the jungle, the two guards were making the best of the situation, even if they had to swat at their necks and arms whenever a mosquito drew near. Such was life as a guard here in the jungles of Thailand.

"I liked it better in China," mumbled one guard, a lanky fellow in gray uniform like all his peers. "Hardly any mosquitos over there."

"Yeah, well, you know what I like about Thailand?" retorted his companion, not bothering to look up from his handful of cards. The mosquitos hardly bothered this average-built man with the light, breathable balaclava covering his face. "The air's cleaner and the food's less likely to kill you. I swear the pollution there's gonna poison the water."

"They're working on it. You gonna play a card or what?"

"Bite me, Tony, I'm thinkin'." The covered guard waved his hand towards the facility's entrance a few meters away. "Why don't you go gather some more guys and we'll play Euchre instead of Golf."

"I hate Euchre. My parents always tried to get me to play and I could never understand it. And besides, there ain't no use getting the other guys out here. They're pretty strung out right now."

There was a flash of purple up a bluff in the jungle a ways out, but when the lanky guard looked up in intrigue, he found nothing of interest other than some foliage rustling around. He shrugged and passed it off as his imagination as per protocol.

"Oh yeah, that's right. Well when two beaten dolls come limping back here in a stolen car, it'll make anyone nervous."

"I feel kinda bad for the poor guy who got carjacked by those two," Tony muttered. "The dolls are some scary girls. Were they always like that, or did that brainwashing or whatever make th-"

"Hey hey hey..." The balaclava guard snapped his fingers and shook his head. "No theorizin' about the dolls. The big boss doesn't like it when us lowly, common grunts get to thinking."

"Bison doesn't like it when we play cards outta sight of the cameras either, Dave, but here we are."

Dave remained silent for a brief moment before answering that with a chuckle.

"Touché. But I'd rather be caught playing cards than snooping around."

"Yeah, and it ain't like Bison's hiring new henchmen anytime so-"

The lanky guard was cut off by the sight of one of Shadaloo's many black bulky vans rolling down a hill on an approach with the facility. Nothing was out of place from what he could tell, though the guard wasn't suspicious in the first place. Even if he was, most Shadaloo vehicles had tinted windows to conceal their occupants. He shrugged and turned back to his cards while his companion glanced over his shoulder and made a noise of mild surprise.

"Huh. Looks like those guys are back from Pai."

"Mhmm." The van crept closer to the gate and continued to pick up speed. At about thirty meters the guards looked up again. "Wait a minute. Back from Pai? Those dolls came back from Pai in rough shape, and on their own."

"Yeah, so?"

"On their own... Without their handlers."

Just as theories started to brew in the two guards' heads, the sounds of the van approaching drowned out all thoughts and instincts except for the overwhelming urge to dodge. They leaped from their chairs and flung themselves behind the security checkpoint as the van careened through a flimsy orange and white wooden barrier. Splinters shot outward and peppered the two guards cowering for cover as their cards fluttered in the air. Bouncing up onto the concrete, the van was dejected from its straight-shot path and slammed into the front walls of the facility's entrance, narrowly missing the thin bay doors by a half-meter. A brutal thud and churning of metal erupted into the jungle air as the van was compacted like a soda can.

But unlike a soda can, the van was rigged to blow. Spurred on by the collision and some vile, violet ki energy, the volatile mixture of flamethrower fuel exploded. With it went the van and the fuel sloshing around in its tank, and from there, the blast tore into the wall with enough ferocity to bring a portion crumbling to the ground. Shrapnel shot out behind the wreck and tore into the security booth at the front of the facility, and while it was flung in so many other directions, the two guards were not harmed. The same could not be said for the coughing, disoriented dozen or so men in uniform who came stumbling outside to see what all the commotion was about.

Our two card-playing Shadaloo goons started to rise up from the dirt when blows from behind knocked them back down where they stayed.

"There's our entrance," Juri cried out in glee as she stood above the two guards. Adon came up beside her, gazed at the group of guards getting their bearings and took off towards them. "Hey, save some for me!"

Adon didn't care to think of himself as an aggressive man, but his lust for combat had been steadily boiling up while he had been driving. Jaguars weren't meant to be cooped up in a stuffy van for hours with a spectral shrew. He didn't stop to consider if any of the men could stand their ground and fight against him, and neither did he allow them to come out of their dizzied state. They were in his way, and thus they deserved to be punished. And the best way to start dealing punishment was to first find one poor sod and make an example out of him.

The furious Thai introduced himself to the group of groggy guards with a wild haymaker that cut downwards. Before the first one fell, Adon figured he had another free second of opportunity and pulled his haymaker to turn it against an adjacent man's cheek as a cartilage-shattering backhand strike. Both fell to the ground at the same time, and though the second tried to get back up, a knee to the side convinced him to stay down. Adon swore he could hear muscles and sinew shifting under the weight of that knee and shuddered with fiendish delight. He was just getting started!

It didn't matter that the guards wore protective kevlar. Adon sank his fists into their bodies and knocked them about with well-placed kicks as if they were mere punching bags. By the time he got to his fourth target the guards had put their heads together and tried to do their jobs. They surrounded the jaguar warrior and lashed out when they were in his blind spot, never when they were being focused upon. Though Adon was knocked around a little from the blows, he proved that he was no ordinary fighter from the way he shifted and turned to block and parry strikes. Even when surrounded he posed far more of a threat to the guards than they did to him.

Not to be outdone, Juri came in and wrecked house with her own group of Shadaloo soldiers. Like Adon, she too had some aggression to work out. She was so close to finding her body now; no-one who dared stand in her way deserved to walk away unharmed. The Korean had her fun cartwheeling and dashing around her enemies as she whittled them down until they were too fatigued to land a strike. In less than a minute, over a dozen Shadaloo guards were writhing and groaning on the ground with over half of them soon lapsing into unconsciousness.

Adon moved away from a guard he had pinned against a wall and watched, amused, as the man slouched and fell to the ground flat on his face.

"You really don't mess around," Juri complimented. She made a motion of dusting off her hands, but when she remembered she had no physical body to collect dirt and grime with, she tried to hide them behind her transparent form. "And… Woah, look at this guy! I think you broke his arm!"

"Who?" Adon glanced down at one passed out guard and noticed his arm was bent at an odd, agonizing angle. The Thai shrugged in response. "These fools are mere whelps compared to those two dolls. Their limbs were practically made of styrofoam."

At that moment an alarm began to blare outside. Fearing for the worst, both Adon and Juri sought shelter by ducking past the burning wreckage of their battering ram and slipping into the hole it created. No turrets or explosions greeted the pair, and neither did anything new appear behind them to fortify the outer perimeter. Instead, the alarms were only noise for the men inside the entrance, and even then, they had all been dealt with.

With the front of the facility free, the two were free to explore. Behind the two bay doors were two elevator platforms large enough to fit a tour bus at any angle and strong enough to carry a heavy tank. To the side and off in a corner was an enclosed room for Shadaloo personnel to sit, relax, watch security camera feed and equip themselves with the tools required to beat back trespassers, police and door-to-door salesmen. From the overturned chairs and personal articles strewn about, the dozen guards from before had been here as the first line of defense. On the other side was another elevator platform with side rail guards, though this one was smaller and suited for the facility's staff.

"Down we go," Adon observed as he moved towards one of the larger platforms. He stopped mid-stride and turned back to Juri following alongside him. "Wait."

"No time for that," Juri said in reply. She took a few steps forward and went to approach the controls to the platform. "Come on, down we-"

The elevator platform shuddered beneath the ghastly woman's feet and took her by complete surprise. A different kind of alarm echoed from deep underground and was carried up to the surface. Sparked to life, the platform began to drop as if called from below. Juri scurried over to the side to get back up where Adon stood looking down at her and the two of them watched as the platform sank along its shaft to the depths below. The second platform churned and sank into the depths as well, leaving the pair with no other means of transport save the smaller, more personal elevator platform.

Hearing voices echo from below, Adon and Juri knew for certain that more Shadaloo grunts were waiting, but they had no other options at that moment.

"Best case scenario is that they're sending up some rescue vehicles or whatever," Juri explained.

"Whatever indeed."

The twosome hopped aboard their private elevator, hit the controls and soon they were on their way down. Once the humid air of the jungle gave way to a cool, air-conditioned atmosphere Adon felt goosebumps spread over his arms. He didn't like being confined in bland, concrete structures. Juri, on the other hand, brightened up. She could work her magic in these tight spaces, even if Adon was a much better fighter in close quarters. When it came to fighting ability, the two were on near-equal footing, and in hindsight, the two should have been thankful they weren't enemies.

When the elevator reached its destination nearly half a hundred meters below the surface of the earth, the two were greeted by an agglomeration of machinery and lights scattered throughout an expansive room. Like above, the area they had come down into was a sort of loading bay for vehicles, supplies and other bits of equipment. There were large corridors and narrow hallways carved out in all four cardinal directions that led deeper into the facility. Multiple signs were plastered on the walls, several of which were written in multiple languages to help direct staff and hired help around in this dark, cold hole. Though it was an abomination of metal and concrete, it was safe to say that this concealed loading bay was the beating heart of the facility!

Before the two stepped off from the elevator they were treated to the sight of those two large platforms- the very same ones that had begun to descend before- being lifted back up their respective shafts towards the surface. On the platforms were a few groups of men and what looked to be service vehicles. At first Adon believed the groups were akin to firefighters and medics, but when he caught the metallic glint of firearms and other high octane equipment he felt his stomach drop. Luckily, either the men on the platforms missed the two fighters coming down or assumed they were part of the staff from afar, as the platforms kept chugging upwards until they disappeared into the darkness.

Juri dashed past Adon and, with him following behind to keep her beloved eye within range, she found a console between the two platforms and disabled it in one fell swoop.

"There," she yipped as she pulled her vaporous hand back. Multicolored wires dangled in her clenched hand before being tossed to the ground. "That oughta keep them from coming back down."

"I'm pretty sure I saw a control panel up there."

"So? Don't worry about it. I know my way around all kinds of machines, and Shadaloo stuff is no exception." The Korean leaned against the destroyed control console and smiled. "Brute force and hacking are two sides of the same coin for me. Either will get the job done."

"So… Wait a minute, if you just destroyed the device that helps to control these platforms…" Adon gestured to the smaller platform the two came down on and pulled a disgusted face. "How the hell are we going to get out of here?"

"Duh, stairs."

"I didn't see any stairs up top… And I don't see any stairs around here either."

The smile vanished from Juri's face.

"Oh. Um… Wow, okay, that's a health and safety violation right there." She kicked off from the console and looked around to no avail. "What the hell, Bison? First you outsource your tech to China and now this?"

"On second thought, there are probably other exits." Adon shook his head and turned away to start reading signs. "Forget it."

"Hey, you're the one who brought it up."

That comment went ignored by the Thai man. In due time they would have to worry about getting out of this facility, but that could wait. The facility seemed massive with their large, expansive corridors, and so the odds of finding another exit or loading bay looked good. That was only if the two got what they came for and were in good enough shape to return to the surface.

"Look here." Juri directed Adon to a map of the compound plastered on a wall near one of the tunnels. She traced her finger along hallways, service routes, mess halls and staff bunks in search of high-clearance rooms. "Generator room… Security hub… Rec room…" She squinted at a nearby sticky note. "Oh cool! They're playing Mario Kart there at 8!"

"Could you focus?"

"Yeah yeah yeah, sure." A few seconds trickled by before Juri tapped on the outline of a small room. It read 'Hazmat Storage, High Clearance' and was only accessible by a large server room. "Here. It's gotta be here."

"What? The Raging Demon or your body?" Adon asked.

"Conveniently, both."

It hadn't yet occurred to Adon just how childish or outrageous it would be if the Raging Demon was some kind of code or data meant to be downloaded off a computer. In his head he believed that his rightful reward would take the form of some kind of orb or flickering, tangible vapor of raw power awaiting a worthy man to snatch it up. Naturally the thing, whatever it could be, would be heavily protected and encased in some glass stasis chamber. Adon had seen plenty of movies; he was confident that he wouldn't be taken for any wild rides here.

"Hazardous material storage, eh? I suppose you should be flattered if that's where they're keeping you."

"You can't tell given my obvious purple complexion, but I'm blushing real hard right now," Juri muttered back in a sarcastic tone. She gestured to the map, then pointed in the direction they needed to go. "Says we gotta-"

"Hey! Intruders!"

Where Juri pointed came a contingent of rear-echelon guards. Most looked to be mechanics and heavyweight laborers, though there were a few nerdy, gangly types in there with batons and tasers to make up for their unimposing nature. Men like these could have been avoided, but they were in Adon and Juri's way and thus they had to be dealt with. As they closed in with him and spread out Adon figured he could spare them some of his precious time.

"Stop them! Don't let them deeper into this facility!"

But no matter how well-trained or well-equipped these Shadaloo guards thought they were, they were soon dealt with. Juri took the opportunity to claim as many victims as she could. Through wild, twisting kicks and impressive acrobatic blows that would put a school of black belts to shame, the spectral woman knocked Shadaloo's henchmen around the room until they could resist no further. She was in constant movement in contrast to Adon who, acrobatic himself, chose to let men come to him. In less than a minute the ragtag group of guards were either moaning on the floor or fleeing in terror with deep bruises.

More men were bound to come, and from all sides. As fun as it would be to stay in the central part of the facility beating up anyone who came to them, the two dashed off towards their objective. Juri led the way at a fast pace. She pointed out signs, took corners and greeted passing Shadaloo personnel with haymakers and clotheslines as if she was a bloodthirsty thug on the sidewalk wrecking havoc. Adon, though he wouldn't admit it, found it entertaining and somewhat endearing, as if Juri's unwillingness to leave others alone was one of her redeeming features.

Once the two arrived at the entrance to the facility's server room, Juri treated Adon to one of her many skills. The doors, made of reinforced steel and locked tight, could only be opened by a keycard or passcode. She went over to the keypad and ripped its cover off as if she was going to destroy it only to lean in close and work at the wiring with diligent fingers. Adon, when he wasn't busy turning away approaching Shadaloo goons with his eight points of contact, looked on and marveled at her ingenuity. He opened his mouth to comment when the doors slid open with a hydraulic hiss, and thus the two ducked inside with Juri managing to close them soon after.

"And… There!" The woman cocked her head in the direction of another keypad, once again with its cover torn off and wires laid bare. A few dangerous sparks emitted from the device and threatened to send a signal back to the door, but the way was shut. "With any luck, that oughta hold."

"There's a chance it won't?" Adon countered.

"Well, yeah. I say we've got plenty of time before those idiots manage to get this door open from out there. Meanwhile, all I gotta do here is cross a few wires and-" Juri smacked her lips with an audible 'pop'. "Open sesame!"

As unprofessional a job as it was, Juri's handiwork looked good enough. Adon nodded in agreement and turned to look out at the server room before him.

Like most server rooms, the room was filled with one type of large, electronic server; far too many to count. They were all arranged in columns that ran far, outfitted with plenty of glowing, flickering lights and stacked nearly five meters high. Darkness coupled with a cool, dry atmosphere gave the room an eerie feel to it, and though the columns were generously spaced apart to fit a truck if need be, it was sure to upset a claustrophobic. The servers were not as unending as they seemed, for every ten to fifteen meters or so there were rows running through the columns. Other than the soft beeping and churning of electronics working, the room was silent.

It was also vacant.

"I don't like this place," Adon said in a harsh whisper. "Too many places to hide."

"Yeah… I hear ya."

At the end of the room the two could see a set of open doors leading into the hazmat storage, just as the map earlier had pointed out. From a distance it didn't look too impressive, yet neither of the two could make out many of its features from afar. They took in the hazmat symbols, large signs and caution lights before noticing that an ominous purple glow was coming from deep inside. It reminded Adon of the glow he had first seen from the Feng Shui Engine yesterday night, and as if on cue, the eye in his pocket pulsed in tune. Juri lit up and, with Adon following along, she jogged through the main aisle of servers to reclaim what she oh-so-desperately hoped was in there.

If this all sounded too easy, it most certainly was.

The two got halfway towards the hazmat storage room's open doors when they were shut tight with an intimidating clank and hiss. Once the doors were sealed shut, the dim lights and glowing servers all around Adon and Juri flicked off and bathed the room in complete darkness. Now the only light came from Juri's spectral form and her cybernetic eye as it shined through the pocket of Adon's boxing shorts. Heavy boots hitting the floor echoed throughout the room along with the rustling of equipment and weaponry, but no matter where Adon and Juri turned to look, they couldn't find their ambushers.

"Dammit, I should've known better." When Adon shot Juri a confused grimace, she continued. "We walked right into this ambush. The end was in sight and here we are in a large, empty room. You play enough videogames and you tend to notice these kinds of things."

"I'm afraid I don't follow."

"Just keep your eyes op-"

Half of the lights in the room came back on with a dramatic click. It was so sudden that Adon had to shield his eyes and flinch, and when he was able to look around again, he noticed that large, flat screens had been revealed on the walls. Smaller screens, once filled with raw computer data where they were attached to many servers, joined the larger ones as they turned on and filled with color. The two looked on as an image of a man took shape, and not just any man. A crimson military cap, pale, scarred face and cold, white eyes along with a menacing grin made up the visage of the de facto leader of Shadaloo, Bison himself. Like rolling thunder he started to chuckle, then once Adon and Juri realized the gravity of the situation, he howled with laughter.

"Bison!" Juri turned to one of the screens nearby and brought up her fists. "Come on out here! We've got a score to settle!"

"A score to settle," Bison repeated with a shake of his head. "As if dying by my hand is a game to you! I have to applaud your tenacity in getting here, Juri, but you will go no further."

"You gonna stop me? I can drop any dumbass you send after me in a matter of seconds. You're delusional if you think you can stop me from getting back my body."

At this Bison's grin widened enough for the pair to count each individual pearly-white tooth.

"Now who said anything about me doing the grunt work? I have so many subordinates willing to fight and die for me, but I'm no fool. I won't dare send fodder your way." Servers near Adon and Juri, humming with an electric current, slid down into the floor. It appeared that in this room the servers could be raised and lowered to create walls or new passageways. "Instead, it would be better to pit you against my elites. You've already met two of them, so what's the harm in two more?"

After more servers were shuffled about to form disconnected columns and wider aisles, eventually the ones on the twosome's flanks would come down and reveal their nemeses. Despite having been beaten up earlier that day and forced to flee, the two Chinese Shadaloo dolls, Xiayu and Jianyu, stood at either side with their weaponry at the ready. Both had light bruises and minor scuffs and cuts from the previous battle, but they appeared to be invigorated with Psycho Power as evidenced by the purple energies swirling around their red gauntlets and from the glow in their eyes. Finally, on the side of their necks were childish bandaids as if they had received some kind of booster shot from a doctor.

Another two Shadaloo dolls came into the picture and took their places nearby to the front and back. The one in front was a redhead and, though she looked cute and harmless enough with a yellow ribbon on her chest, medical bag on her hip and a schoolgirl-esque skirt and white leggings, there was no mistaking the animosity in her eyes. This one had to be the medic of the squad as well as the leader. Behind them all and blocking the way to the exit- however shut tight as it was- was a bespectacled, purple-haired doll in the same basic blue uniform as Xiayu and Jianyu. She had no weapons, but what she did have was a small laptop that she was idly tapping away at.

Four Shadaloo dolls in total. An execution squad.

"Xiayu, Jianyu, Aprile and März," Bison introduced. "I would have more of my precious girls to greet you with, but these are all I can spare. The rest are still recuperating from the savage beating you gave them, Juri."

"I'm still gonna beat your little girls half to death, and then when I get my body back, I'm coming after you, Bison," Juri growled.

"Ah yes, your body..." Adon, who had remained silent up until then, grumbled due to being ignored. The Psycho Powered dictator looked him up and down with a curious smile. "Color me intrigued! You've made a friend!"

"You are one ugly, obnoxious little worm," Adon said in greeting. "Are you going to bore us to death, or are you going to come out here and fight?"

"Yes, now I remember. Sagat's disgraced pupil, Adon." Bison ignored Adon's taunting question and leaned into the screen with a fist under his chin. "You two make for an unsightly pair. I wonder... how on earth did she manage to make an ally out of you in this grand folly?"

"That's my business, not yours."

There was some relief in Adon saying that. Juri had a worry hidden at the back of her mind that all the lies she had told would be unraveled at an inopportune time. But it seemed that Adon either trusted her- hardly ever a good thing- or he was clever enough to keep his motives to himself in the face of this dictator. However, just as Juri knew the power-hungry Thai, so too did Bison. With a disgusting, knowing sneer Bison pointed right at Adon and laid into him.

"Let me guess. You're here searching for the Raging Demon."

"You're damn right I am." The arrogant fighter tried to adopt his own sneer, though it turned out more as an anxious scowl. "It's here somewhere, hidden away. I'll find it, and with it, all will bow before me!"

"And if I told you that your precious power isn't here in this facility?" Bison countered.

Seething, Adon leaned in and wrung his hands.

"Then I'll take it from your cold, battered corpse."

"Hahaha! Such arrogance! The Raging Demon is a pathetic little bauble compared to my Psycho Power. I have no place for it in my organization. It is simply not here."

"You lie!" Adon shouted. He glanced over at Juri for support only to find that she was looking down at the floor, silent. Shaken but undeterred by the sight, Adon turned back to Bison. "You… Your child organization, SIN, had their hands on the Raging Demon before you took back control and seized all its assets. Don't try to play me. That power is here!"

"Oh, my Shadaloo Intimidation Network had it? I'm afraid I don't recall." Bison then looked to Juri and delighted in how nervous she seemed. "Surely you concur, Juri. You were Seth's right hand in SIN for years. Always the best agent, if not the most bloodthirsty and manipulative of them all."

Turning back to Juri, Adon's immediate reaction was not to accuse her of lying but rather to ask if any of Bison's words could be trusted. He was a psychotic, borderline insane megalomaniac who murdered, stole and lied in his endless pursuit of power. In contrast, Juri, though she had been known for several hours up until then, had come off as reliable and someone worthy of Adon's respect. But looking at the spectral woman now, all Adon could see was her avoiding his gaze like a guilty child. And even then, she didn't look all that guilty; more agitated that things had unraveled so poorly.

There was no doubt in Adon's mind that he had been duped. The floodgates containing his wrath started to shift open as a consequence.

"Ahh… It appears that she's pulled the wool over your eyes," Bison mused aloud. "I wager she promised you the Raging Demon in return for your assistance in recovering her body here..."

"Is that true?" Adon started out quiet and calm, yet when Juri refused to answer him, he cracked. His voice boomed as his body shook with indignant fury. "Answer me! Where is my Raging Demon?"

"You better back off, right now," Juri growled.

"And you had better start telling the truth before I do something you'll regret."

So used to towering over lesser men and watching them tremble and grovel before him, Adon was caught off guard when Juri whirled around and got right in his face.

"So you want the truth, huh? Alright, fine. There is no Raging Demon. In fact, we never had it in the first place!" The woman flung her hands up in exasperation. "Yeah, that's right! We never had it! I mean, there was some work on the Satsui no Hado or whatever at SIN, but that never got anywhere. But who gives a shit now that SIN's been wiped out by this disgusting bastard?" Juri shouted as she gestured to Bison's image. "And what about me? I spent years planning and plotting Shadaloo's destruction from within only to have it ruined because, spoiler alert, my 'death' meant SIN was left defenseless! Argh, I shoulda known Seth was all talk!"

"Perhaps next time you'll stay dead," Bison interjected.

"Go to hell!"

To say that Adon was surprised at all of this would be an understatement. It was as if his world had been swept out from under his feet! Ever since he learned about that terrible power, the Raging Demon, he knew that he needed it to complete the legend he had aspired for himself. His lust was so great that it had landed him here, and now that it was all an elaborate ruse, a fabrication from a spectral woman, the angry Thai had nothing to go on. He had figured this was his best chance at getting his hands on the Raging Demon, but the chance was never there to begin with. Adon felt hollow and defeated, and worst of all, he felt betrayed.

The animal within Adon begged to lay hands on Juri and tear her asunder. Instead he held it back and advanced on Juri, to which she reacted by taking a few steps away from him to no avail. He towered over her. And this was all while the dolls looked on!

"How dare you… How dare you lie to me!"

Juri managed to find her voice and fought back.

"Oh I dared, and you wanna know why? Because the high-and-mighty Adon is an egomaniacal, insecure, frigid, power-hungry, apathetic asshole!" She had to take multiple breaths after that one, and her shoulders heaved all the while. In a softer yet still dangerous tone, she continued. "You would never have agreed to help me unless there was something in it for you!"

"I… am not… insecure," Adon growled after a brief period of silence.

"Like hell you aren't. You're constantly… Incessantly thirsting for the Raging Demon." Juri folded her arms and turned to the side to glance away. "You're obsessed, Adon. And one day this obsession's gonna kill you."

The sound of four pairs of boots stamping at the ground once in unison combined with Bison clearing his throat brought the two back to their current situation. Surrounded and divided.

"I do apologize for interrupting your lover's quarrel, but I have a delicious little offer I'd like to place on the metaphorical table." Like any good megalomaniacal villain, Bison leaned in towards the camera on his end and steepled his fingers. Though Adon and Juri weren't impressed by this, they were nevertheless put off by the shadow cast over the dictator's soulless white eyes. "A little something to benefit you, Adon, should you choose to accept it."

"Oh yeah? And what would that be? Another proposition for a place in your pathetic organization?" Adon noticed that Juri was looking at the same screen as he was and, just to be petty, he turned to another, opposite one. He ignored the scoff that arose from this. "Go stuff your offer, Bison."

"You misunderstand, whelp. I offered you a position once before, yes, and you turned it down. Vehemently so. I would never ask again. No, I am merely offering you the chance to walk away."

At that Adon's eyes narrowed in scrutiny.

"What?"

"You heard me. If you leave this facility I will not pursue you. Your little village will be stricken from our records and remain unmolested. Whatever injuries you've inflicted upon my minions today will be forgiven and forgotten."

"What's the catch?"

"Smart," Bison commented with a wry smile. As if on cue, when Bison gestured to Adon many of the lights in the server room focused down on him. "The catch? Hand over the Feng Shui Engine. Then you'll be free to go."

It sounded like a fine offer for the King of Muay Thai, but right now Adon felt more like a fool than anything else. He was at Bison's mercy; subject to his pity. Such humiliation did not sit well with Adon. Had Juri not been there at his side as a spectral manifestation of her soul contained within the eye, Adon wouldn't have hesitated. He would have been foolish and accepted the offer under the guise of cutting his losses and returning to his village alive. Even worse than foolish, Adon would be under the delusion that Bison was a man of his word.

Pettiness being brushed aside for now, Adon turned back towards Juri and saw that she was giving him an anxious, sideways look. She had revealed her true colors to him at that moment and hurt his pride and ego in one go. Adon had put people in the hospital for far lesser crimes, so, by all means, he was well within his right to condemn the woman to death. He could hand over the eye to Bison- to his dolls- and get a consolation prize in seeing Juri beg and grovel for another chance, and while a day ago that would have given the man some cruel satisfaction, right now that was a hard choice to make. Juri had her reasons for lying. As much as it pained Adon to admit it, she was right about him.

Despite everything, Juri was a woman, a lost soul, fighting tooth and nail for a second chance at life. That alone was deserving of some sympathy, yet in the very beginning Adon gave her none whatsoever. Now it was his turn to feel guilty. Could Adon, in all good conscience, condemn Juri to whatever torture Bison had in store? Despite the lies and the insults, could he really walk away?

"What's there to think about?" Bison muttered aloud as he sensed Adon's hesitation. "She used you like a gullible fool, promised you something that's both impossible and unreasonable and lied all the while."

Juri remained silent. Her ghastly form was tense and her cybernetic eye whirled in Adon's pocket as if it was trying to tear its way out to safety. In her gaze Adon could tell that she was prepared to fight him, but that it wouldn't bring her any joy in doing so. There was something else in her gaze as well. As corny as it seemed to a man who had no belief in fate, he thought he could see a sliver of hope. Hope for what, Adon had no idea. Nevertheless, it pushed him further away from choosing the easy way out.

"I didn't lie about my past," Juri assured in a soft, hushed voice. It was barely above a whisper and went unnoticed by Bison and his dolls. "Not about what Shadaloo did to me."

There was no need for her to say anything more.

"I know," Adon replied.

One of the dolls, the redheaded one known as Aprile, approached Adon and held out her hand for him to give her the Feng Shui Engine. Bison was not a patient man. Time was almost up. Adon had to decide.

"You can give the eye to me voluntarily, or I'll take it from you. What will it be?"

The Thai man reached into his pocket and, as if he was handling a priceless ring of power, he pulled it out with great care and caution. He looked down at its pulsing, cybernetic shell, glanced over at Juri, then glared up at Aprile.

"There's no guarantee that you'll leave me alone. No guarantee that you'll leave Pai alone." Adon's rough fingers played with the Feng Shui Engine for a moment before he snatched it up and slid it back into his pocket. Bison's bubbling anger- reflected on Aprile's face- would have made a lesser man quiver in fear. But for Adon, it brought out one of his better sneers. "I'll be keeping this. Besides… I think that woman's earned a second chance at life."

"Absolutely abhorrent," Bison grumbled. "If you care so much for that vile creature, then you can die with her. Girls, eliminate them both!"

Bison cut the video feed on his end and rendered each video screen pitch-black once again with an audible click. Like a fired gun, the click spurred the dolls into action. Adon was quicker on the draw and lashed out with a sucker punch on the medic doll, Aprile, to give him some breathing room. Animals didn't fight fair when cornered or outnumbered, and neither did Adon. With Aprile clutching her nose in agony, the jaguar warrior doubled back and took cover behind a nearby server. Juri was there as well and reacted to the man's presence with a shake of her head.

"You know, you just signed your own death warrant," she said dryly.

"I couldn't just leave you to fight a four-on-one battle all by yourself. Where's the honor in that? Besides, so far you're the only one worthy of my respect."

"So you're not angry?"

"No, as a matter of fact, I'm absolutely livid." Adon wagged his finger and spoke through clenched teeth. "But that… can wait."

Juri gave him a genuine smile at that.

"Well alright! Let's kick some ass!" She dashed out from cover and went for the first doll she could see. "Come on baby, show me what you've got!"

How many fights had Adon been in since this morning? Four? Five? It was hard to tell, but Adon's hot-blooded, hot-headed nature relished the opportunity to get into yet another scuffle. And yet this wouldn't be an ordinary battle. The pair were facing down the Shadaloo dolls once again- four to be exact!

Adon slipped out of cover as well and partnered up with Juri as she assaulted the two Chinese dolls, Xiayu and Jianyu. As before, Xiayu was a force to be reckoned with when she had her nunchaku flailing about, and Jianyu was hard to close with when a quarterstaff was thrust out time and time again. They had been enhanced and revitalized by a combination of Psycho Power and whatever medical substance the medic had injected into them. By all means, they were more dangerous than before, but no amount of medicine or crazy power could nullify the aches and pains from their previous encounter with Adon and Juri. And to even the odds even more, the jaguar and spider had learned how to work together by then.

As if they were two well-coordinated dancers, Adon and Juri complemented each other's strengths and negated any weaknesses. Whenever Xiayu advanced upon Juri, Adon took a hit from the nunchaku and slammed a limb into the doll's body with the force of an elephant. Whenever Jianyu gave Adon trouble with that quarterstaff, Juri jumped in and showed the braided bludgeoner who had the better legs. This wasn't to say that the two were a perfect team. They still got in each other's way, attacked at the wrong moment and bickered amongst themselves. There was no friendly fire of any kind, though if this wasn't a life-or-death situation, Adon would have been wary of Juri tripping him for entertainment.

Things were going well enough until Adon was reminded that there were other dolls to deal with.

"Hey! Behind you!"

Juri's warning came too late for Adon. Just as he had beaten away Xiayu with heavy punches he felt a combat boot hit him square in the back. Even as he tucked himself into a roll and sprang back up onto his feet, his due compliment came in the form of a jab to the face. There was a surprising amount of muscle packed in a doll's lithe frame, which Adon came to realize when he felt Aprile rush him and pin his body against a server. The initial observation that Aprile was somewhat cute or unassuming was quickly thrown away when Adon came face-to-face with her. There was no kind, gentle, bedside manner look in her eyes; only that of murderous fury.

At the first punch to his ribs, Adon felt the sting of regret when he remembered that he had sucker punched this redheaded woman right in the face. The second punch brought out a thought that somehow this was in violation of the Geneva Convention. The third, Adon wondered where that purple-haired doll ran off to. And for the fourth… Well, Adon didn't allow a fourth to land. He found a way to throw off Aprile's rhythm and punished a missed strike with a knee to the gut. Another knee to the gut and she was driven away so the battered man could take a second or two to compose himself.

"März!" Aprile cried out. She waved her hand towards Adon as he looked on, dumbfounded. "D-24!"

"What in the world-"

The server Adon had been pinned against chirped before exploding with electricity. No shrapnel or burst equipment came from the server's shell; only the hot, stinging web of torture that was a strong electric shock. A high voltage current surged through Adon's body and soul and paralyzed him with pain. It was unknown how high the volts were, but it was safe to say that it was enough to deter an elephant. For a few seconds Adon felt his nerves turn to molten lava as his body convulsed on the current. Once the server had finished with its electrical expulsion, the device fizzled out and went dark, leaving Adon standing on unstable legs with a noticeable twitch.

"Y-y-yoooouuuu… Wiiiiitch!"

"You hurt my sisters," Aprile muttered. She rummaged around in her medical pack and came up with a hefty, empty syringe. "You spilled blood. Now… I'll take yours."

Adon feared no man, beast or disease. But the gleaming, sharp needle on that syringe? The man would have frozen in place regardless of being electrocuted.

"Get that thing away from me!" This wasn't Adon's proudest moment, nor was it made any better when Aprile advanced on him. Instead of closing the distance, Adon started to backpedal away. "Are you mad?"

"Let's see if you have Type O."

With Aprile advancing on him, Adon found himself in a difficult position. He was on the defensive. With his speed and power, he was better suited for aggressive tactics. Even if he slipped into a defensive stance, it only meant that an impressive acrobatic feat was waiting to be unleashed like a coiled spring. But here his limbs were tired and sore, and his feet weren't as fleet as they should have been. Until Adon got his head back into the fight, he would have to be careful.

Like a shark smelling blood in the water, the crazed Italian medic picked up on Adon's unease and exacted her revenge. Most of her attacks were blocked or deflected, but the ones that did get through made the Thai man stagger and flinch. Eventually, Aprile pinned him up against another server and, just like last time, she buttered Adon up as best as she could with punches and knee strikes before leaving him to ride the current of an electrical shock.

"D-15!"

"No no no no no!" This time Adon was prepared for a shocking experience. However, he stumbled when he should have leaped away and thus got a smaller, yet still painful, amount of volts running wild through his system. "Not aga- Aaaauuuuugggh!"

Once the static had worn off, Adon looked up just in time to see Aprile lurch in with that deadly needle of hers. Again, not one of Adon's better moments, he seized up and recoiled, but it was no use. The medic's aim was pin-perfect and would have snuffed the man's life out had it not been for Juri's intervention. The spectral woman had dashed out from a nearby gap in the column of servers to barrel down on Aprile's position. Just before the medic could make the final blow, Juri shot up with a flying knee and battered Aprile away with righteous fury.

"Oh, so you like shocking people, huh?" Landing far more gracefully than her opponent, Juri grabbed Aprile and flung her against a server still brimming with energy. She cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted, "E-12!"

It was a stupid idea. Absurd. And yet it worked like a charm. The server Aprile had collided with erupted in a shower of sparks and gave the medic a taste of her own medicine. She howled in agony and went through a few spasms before the electric shock relented and allowed her to fall to the cold floor beneath her. Unlike Adon, who could take a few shocks and still manage to fight, Aprile went down and stayed down. Static crackled over her form while her extremities twitched here and there; one would mistake her for being dead if it weren't for her gentle, though labored, breathing and muffled whimpering.

Juri whooped and stood over Aprile's form.

"Haha! How's that shock therapy treating ya, doc?" She then glanced up and shouted over the servers. "Hey März, thanks for the assist!"

März, hidden away in one of the room's many aisles, lobbed a string of colorful German curses back at Juri before relocating to a new position, wherever that could be in this maze of servers. Juri sniggered at the pitter-patter of combat boots running away before turning back to Adon. Hunched over, battered and humiliated, the man searched within for the strength to pick himself back up. A glance towards the medical syringe resting on the floor gave Juri all the information she needed and, rather than kick a man while he's down, she swiped up the instrument and flung it away.

"Hey man, don't worry," Juri encouraged. "You don't have to explain anything. You're good."

"Let's just forget this ever happened," Adon suggested as he shook himself back to his senses. He took a deep breath and gave Juri a grateful nod of his head. "Alright. I'm good."

"Alright, good, 'cuz I uh… I still kinda need you."

Case in point, Xiayu and Jianyu flew into the aisle on a collision course with the two. In an instant Adon switched back to his normal state of being, the cocky, arrogant and insufferable Muay Thai fighter, and made his presence known. He and Juri eased back into their routine and staved off the Chinese dolls' attacks well enough until they found openings for decisive strikes. It may have been over in a matter of seconds and thus far too short for Juri's liking, but the two had figured they had had enough of Xiayu and Jianyu for one day. Two dull thuds signaled their defeat; the dolls were down for the count and weren't about to get back up anytime soon.

With three down, the German März was next on the list.

"Keep an eye out for the geek," Juri advised.

"What's a geek?"

"Seriously?" The spectre sighed and shook her head. She had expected Adon to worry more about his bruises and welts than terminology. "Well, geeks are like… people who are way too into technology. Real enthusiastic hobbyists or whatever."

"So a nerd, huh?"

"No, not at all. Geeks are cool, nerds aren't."

For some curious, personal reason Adon couldn't help but feel offended.

"That doesn't seem fair."

"Gee, I wonder why you think so," Juri retorted. She opened her mouth to continue when she noticed a flash of Shadaloo blue. "Hey! There she is!"

Sure enough, the two came across März, the final doll of the group of four. She jumped in surprise and ducked behind a row of servers. Compared to the others, März seemed mousy and not at all intimidating, and with her laptop held in front of her body like a platter of priceless knowledge, it was clear that her role wasn't to fight. But she wasn't defenseless. Whenever she had a moment she would type away at her computer and work her magic on the servers around her. Chasing her through all these columns of rigged servers didn't seem as easy as it had first appeared.

If the servers weren't exploding, then they were rising and sinking to create new pathways and to block März's pursuers. At first, this was manageable, but after the third time, Adon and Juri grew irritated and more determined to bring an end to the German techie. They couldn't split up either, for if they drifted too far away Juri's incorporeal form would become unstable and intangible. The only solution was to play the waiting game and keep quiet. Adon could be patient, but Juri couldn't sit still for long. She eventually leaned around a corner and poked her head out to get a bead on März.

Juri looked up just in time to see März's laptop smash down upon her head.

"She's h-" The laptop broke in two as Juri flopped to the floor in a dazed heap. "Mi-chin nyeon," she whimpered, cursing in her own language.

Despite being clinically dead for three months, being whacked by a hard laptop still hurt. Juri heard straining and struggling around her and, when she got ahold of her senses, she looked up to see März in a chokehold. Looking further up she noticed Adon doing the work, and she figured he was well-validated in his decision to subdue the German techie like this. The man was exhausted, bruised, beaten, bloody and most of all, exasperated. He neither had the energy nor the patience for a drawn-out fight with one more doll. When März stopped struggling and slipped into unconsciousness, Adon breathed a sigh of relief and laid her down on the floor.

He wiped his brow, went to lean against a nearby server and slid down into a sitting position with a weary simper.

"Is that… Is that it? There were four of them, right?"

"Yeah. Only four, if Bison really was telling the truth." Wincing, Juri pushed herself off the floor and glared daggers at März's unconscious form. "Unfortunately, thanks to this 'wunderkind' breaking her frickin' laptop over my head, getting into that locked room over there's gonna be a lot more difficult."

Adon drew a blank, but only for a second. Right, the woman's body in the 'Hazmat Storage'. Granted, Adon had been knocked around a few times since he had seen those goal doors shut, and to him it felt as if a month had passed since he and Juri fought all four dolls. Plus, when the cat was let out of the bag and Adon realized that his prized power had never been on the table in the first place, his subconscious tried to forget Juri's plight out of pure spite. But now that the danger had passed and the end was in sight, Adon would be damned if he didn't see this through. He wasn't a man who left things half-finished, after all.

"You'll find a way," Adon assured more than ordered. "You have to. Or else all of this will be for nothing."

Juri knew better than most when someone was lacing their words with venom, and by all means, she was to blame for it.

"Look, I'll… I'll find some way to make it up to you. But that's only if and when we get my body back."

In hindsight, Juri had spoken far too soon. Once the two were on their feet and returned to the center aisle in the server room, they noticed that the few screens still operational were revving back to life. When the picture came in, there was Bison sitting in front of a camera once again. His attention was fixed on a book in one hand while his other held what looked to be a martini or glass of fine wine. The vile dictator flipped a page, took a sip from his drink and then, without looking up, reached over to flick a switch to let his voice come through.

"Girls," he cooed in a delighted tone, "you've made quite the racket! Aprile, be a dear and give me a report."

"They're a little indisposed at the moment," Juri replied. "Can I take a message?"

Bison looked up in alarm and, when he saw both Adon and Juri standing with none of his girls around to contest them, the martini in his hand shattered and his book tumbled to the floor. He lurched forward and nearly took up the entire screen with his ugly, soulless face.

"Outrageous! You two should have been pummeled to dust by now!"

"Oh come on, Bison. I've already died once. I can't die twice!"

"And I've had enough of this," Adon growled. "You enrage the jaguar and you'll find out just how it feels to be in its jaws."

The Psycho Powered fiend gritted his teeth as the twosome turned away. It appeared that he had been bested, that his troops were no match for the jaguar warrior and Korean spectre. But then his eyes narrowed and a cruel grin spread across his face as he remembered something… delicious.

"Fine. I concede," Bison muttered. When Adon and Juri looked back at a screen in surprise, Bison continued. "Congratulations, Juri. You and your raggedy companion have bested me. I suppose I should give you what you want now, hmm?"

Those words were dark and foreboding, and rightfully so. The doors to the hazmat storage room started to open as alarms blared from within. Machinery hissed and emitted plenty of steam to the point where a dense fog had billowed up in the doorway. At first, only the orange lights from alarms could be seen through the fog, at least until it was overshadowed by a dreary black and white glow. Both Adon and Juri looked on as a thin figure materialized and stepped through the fog, and when it did, it was hard for them not to gasp. For Juri especially, she felt a horrible, grave despair slam into her soul.

"If you want your body back so badly, then here. Enjoy."

When the fog dissipated Adon blanched. There standing before the two was Juri Han in the flesh; her body in all its glory. Though she was covered up well enough, it was only with a blue Shadaloo jumpsuit instead of some crazy yet comfortable set of custom taekwondo clothes like the one her true, spectral self was wearing. Adon could see raven-black, shoulder-length hair and skin so pale it would worry a mortician, but the most striking things about the soulless body were the empty, violet eyes and expressionless face. Even the posture of the body was stiff and robotic, which begged the question if this was really Juri Han's body in the first place.

But on closer inspection there was a gnarly scar over the body's left eye, but where there should have been an empty socket there was some kind of replacement cybernetic eye. This was Juri's body, her true form, and seeing it as it was now made the woman sick. Juri had never felt so violated before in all her life.

"You… Y-you…" Her voice cracked as she began to shudder. Then, she roared. "Bison! You're going to burn for this!"

"What's with the hostility, little girl? You really should be thanking me. Now your body has a purpose."

To Adon, this was all so horribly surreal. He had traveled the world and seen plenty of strange things. Hell, he wandered through Bangkok at night more than he cared to admit. Seeing Juri's body without a soul, rigged up like a marionette in Bison's hands, evoked a mixture of rage and disgust in his heart. It was an abomination that encouraged Adon to put aside any petty grievances and focus. Suffice to say, if Adon had lost any sympathy for Juri since stepping foot in this godforsaken facility, it had returned tenfold.

"I would never have thought of using your corpse like this had it not been for that prototype eye I found in SIN's headquarters. It's no Feng Shui Engine, but it's impressive nonetheless." Bison gestured to the body as it began to walk towards the duo. "As you can see, it's been thoroughly worked over by my organization, and I'd like to say I've given it a personal touch."

"This isn't right," Adon murmured. He turned to Juri. "What do we do?"

Juri had nothing to say. She looked on as her body approached her like a machine before lashing out. The spectre, the soul, made the first attack against its controlled body, but to no avail whatsoever. Though Juri's leg made contact against her body's side, the body stood firm and hardly reacted. Another kick came to the opposite side, and this time the body pinned the swirling, violet vortex of a leg against itself with a grip so cold and strong it might have well been an actual robot or android.

Adon stepped in to intervene and got kicked away for his efforts. Struggling in the grapple, Juri could only watch as her body raised its arm and jabbed an elbow into her knee.

"Gaah!" The Korean spirit flopped to the floor with a leg that didn't look as straight as it once had been. It wasn't broken- hard to break non-existent bones in a spectre- but it throbbed like a pulsating vein about to rupture. "Goddamn, that hurts!"

"Isn't it ironic that the one thing that could hurt you the most is yourself?" Bison guffawed.

"What are you doing?" Juri looked up at Adon and gestured to her body with a clenched fist. "Help me! Kick my ass!"

Had there been more time and less danger, Adon would have questioned all of this. Instead, he eased himself back into the action no matter how sore his limbs were or how tired he felt. He was filled with righteous indignation that more than made up for any fatigue he had. His strikes weren't as quick as they had been before and his acrobatic talents had been exhausted, yet Adon was determined to put an end to all of this. And yet, with every strike he landed on Juri's body he received one in turn, and those were far more powerful and swift than he could ever hope to emulate.

To make things worse, Bison seemed to be controlling Juri's body remotely as opposed to his dolls who, for the most part, operated autonomously. There was cruelty in the corpse's eyes and in her actions.

"This is all so pleasantly surprising," the dictator commented even as Juri started to destroy the screens in the server room bearing his image. "Your body is putting up a better fight than you ever did three months ago. Even with your loud, heavy-handed companion with you, there's no contest. You'll both be dead within the minute."

"God, shut up already!"

Destroying the screens had no effect beyond removing Bison's ability to see and speak to them both. But it made Juri feel better, so there was that.

"Can't take much more of this..." Adon put some distance between him and Juri's body so he could stand by the spectre. "If that thing, your body, gets another good hit on me-" He ducked to the side to avoid a butterfly kick from the body. Impressive, but dodging it was even more so. "That! Like that!"

"I'm not doing so hot here either," Juri muttered. She was right; her spectral form looked faded compared to how she had been before. "I think the Feng Shui Engine's hit a limit…"

A limitless amount of ki at one's disposal meant nothing if the cybernetic gadget responsible for its supply went on the fritz. Already Adon could feel the humming, trembling eye in his pocket stutter and churn like an engine pushed past its limits. If it died out, he feared for what might happen next. Meanwhile, the prototype eye in Juri's body was trilling away without a problem. Being conservative would not bring the two victory.

"Hold on a little longer and we-"

The words Adon wanted to say were robbed from him as Juri's body dashed towards the two and unleashed a wide, sweeping arc of black and white energy against them. Caught in the wave, Adon and Juri were pushed back several meters and tumbled across the debris-ridden floor. Everything else in the wake of this energy was either toppled over or destroyed outright, but there was a silver lining in that most of those blasted screens with Bison's face on them were put out of commision. Adon wasn't thinking about that; all that was on his mind was the excruciating pain. Ki energy looked beautiful, but when washed over wounds and injuries, it felt like acid.

The wave of energy finally dissipated and deposited the two on the cold floor to writhe away. Juri looked especially close to her second death. So close in fact that Adon could see right through her as if a higher power was trying to siphon her soul to whatever abyss that awaited. It hurt to move, but the determination was still strong in the two, and thus it hurt far worse to lie there and do nothing.

"I got an idea," Juri breathed out with a wince. "It's… It's pretty crazy, so it might not even work. But what other choices do we have?"

Adon felt the eye in his pocket beating like a heart on life support. He raised his head from his pained, prone position and shot Juri a curious look.

"Okay, hear me out. The Feng Shui Engine… Take my eye and-"

"Please don't ask me to mutilate myself," Adon interjected.

"No! Nothing like that. I promise. Just trust me on this." Juri craned her neck in the direction of her body for a moment. It seemed that the lifeless body was either distracted or taunting the two by taking its sweet time getting to them. Either way, Juri was going to use the time. "Okay. Listen to me. Take my eye and hold it. Hold it close and focus on it. Just… Let it wash into you."

It was starting to sound like a preposterous plot. Adon had no ki capabilities whatsoever. While Ryu, Chun-Li and other World Warriors were tossing out hadoukens and whatever, Adon got by with superior acrobatics and refined strength. But he didn't dare question Juri. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the pulsing Feng Shui Engine to gaze upon its dim violet light, and though he held it close and narrowed his eyes in concentration, he imagined he looked like a wounded fool taking refuge in superstition. Adon felt a little warmer, yes, but it wasn't enough of a difference.

"Wo-" He cut himself off and looked at the woman next to him. She had a name. "Juri. Juri it's not-"

Juri reached over and clasped her hands over Adon's clenched hand. She squeezed, gentle and reassuring, and gazed into his eyes.

"Focus. Can you feel it?" The Feng Shui Engine started to beat at a faster tempo just then. Juri, in contrast, shimmered but maintained her determined gaze. "The warmth? It's not the Raging Demon. It's me. Let it flow into you, if only for a minute."

Meanwhile, Bison was blissfully unaware of the exchange. Whatever cameras that showed him the action in the server room were almost all destroyed. The very few that remained were contained within the television and computer screens affixed to the walls. Bison rubbed his hands and made no effort to hide his fiendish delight while his sinister experiment, Juri's body, shambled towards the two on the ground. In Bison's twisted mind he had already declared himself the victor.

As uncomfortable as it felt, not to mention awkward, Adon let Juri do her work despite how close they were. It was hard to focus, but the man drew upon his courage and determination and tried. The Feng Shui Engine continued to pulse and pick up its tempo in his clenched hand while Juri, engrossed in the process, began to lose her shape. The swirling vortex of violet ki energy that made up her form shifted towards the cybernetic eye, and from there, it started to wash over Adon's arms. In an instant, the Thai man could feel an invigorating warmth spread from his core all the way out to the tips of his extremities. Fresh air swept into his lungs, the pain in his limbs eased away and his fighting spirit felt as if it had been bolstered.

Adon blinked a few times and shivered before shaking and clearing his head.

"Get up," Juri's voice urged him. It sounded as if she was over his shoulder, or better yet, a figment of his consciousness. "It's a rush, I know. But you gotta make this count."

It was so strange that Adon thought he was dreaming at first. It had seemed so difficult to stand up before, but now the man had himself up and off the floor before he even realized it. He inspected his body and found Juri's energy, her ki, radiating off of his limbs like steam rising from the ground. The Feng Shui Engine in his hand flickered and sputtered again, but its light was bright and its hum was inspiring. Adon slipped the device back into his pocket and circled his shoulders back. At that moment he felt like a king; a man having gotten his second wind.

"Go on. I'll follow your lead."

"Only for a minute, huh?" The Muay Thai prodigy peered down the destroyed server aisle at the approaching Korean cadaver. "That's more than enough."

Bison scoffed in disbelief.

"What is it with you people? You self-righteous, overconfident 'heroes' can't seem to stay down, and you keep fighting despite all the odds being stacked against you. Hmph… and people call me insane!" If he were there personally, his tone might have been different. "Fine then. Come. Throw yourself at this husk and die."

The jaguar warrior, enhanced and invigorated by the Korean spider, closed the distance between himself and the woman's body. Again, like a robot, the dead woman's body surprised Adon with how quick and jarring its movements were. Cold, calculated and efficient, but without a soul to guide it, the body failed to account for raw human passion. And in Adon's case, he didn't know when to quit. He exchanged blows with Juri's body once again, but this time he was gaining the upper hand.

A crushing kick to the leg made the body stumble, and from there, Adon closed in for the kill. He could feel Juri bolstering his strikes all the while. As he lashed out with the beginnings of a powerful string of elbow strikes, a violet afterimage copied every move and doubled the ferocity of those strikes. Juri was reaching out in her own way. Slash after slash, crush after crush, Adon sent his elbows rocketing into Juri's unstable body until a final blow, done in tandem with the violet afterimage, slammed up under the body's chin and knocked it out of commission.

As Juri's body went airborne, the prototype eye screeched and either broke down or powered off. Either way, once the body hit the floor, the fight was over.

"Oh." Bison looked down at his defeated champion, back to Adon, then back to the corpse. "Well… I honestly shouldn't be this surprised. Don't know why I expected much out of your dea-"

Juri materialized by Adon's side and swept her hand out towards the one surviving screen broadcasting Bison's face to obliterate it with a sharp shard of ki energy. She had good aim; the shard hit right between the dictator's eyes on screen before the device fell to the floor in pieces.

"That's enough outta you," Juri hissed. She stood tall and proud for a moment until a wave of unease washed over her and made her stumble and fade away. "Agh… Goddammit, my…"

Adon moved towards her with the inclination to help, but he stopped mid-step when he realized he had no idea where to begin. The spectre in the eye might have been fading away as the contraption struggled to keep going, but so too did Adon look like he could fall at any moment. Bruises, welts and lacerations covered his body. His shirt had been ripped so much that it was better to take it off than leave it on. Blood trickled down his brow from a fresh cut, and yet the man was still standing.

"Are you alright?"

"No. Hell no. I feel like I'm being torn into." Juri glanced down at the dimly-glowing Feng Shui Engine in Adon's pocket and groaned. "Hnn… The FSE was never designed to be able to operate on its own. It's a wonder how I survived for three months."

"So, what now?"

There was no immediate answer. Instead, Juri looked down at her body and let her eyes wander. For a moment she seemed mournful as if she was witnessing her own death. Here she was about to fade away having accomplished nothing, if little at least. But then her eyes lit up. She turned towards the hazmat storage room's open doors and went in to give the place a quick look over. Adon, perplexed by this behavior yet curious as well, made a move to follow.

The woman's hopeful smile and outstretched hand stopped him right in his tracks.

"I think we're in luck." She locked eyes with Adon and beckoned him over. But first, she pointed at her discarded body. "Could you please pick me up?"

Of course, Adon did as was requested. How could he say no? He kneeled down, hooked his arms under Juri's body behind the knees and back and lifted up. Holding this soulless body did not bring the man any comfort. It was light and cold to the touch, and up close Adon could see so many details. Other than that jagged, gruesome scar over the left eye, the body seemed to have been well-preserved after three months. There was the morbid curiosity to examine the body further, but Adon pushed it down and away, as did he the inclination that Juri didn't look bad at all.

He went in after Juri and looked around inside the hazmat storage area. Sure enough, there were containers marked with dangerous symbols, glass cabinets filled with chemicals and other disconcerting objects. There were also plenty of filing cabinets and other containers, though those didn't seem to be with hazardous materials at all. Medical slabs, empty and clean, looked to be where dolls were restrained and given 'upgrades' or more thorough brainwashing. Worse, they could be used for a Shadaloo scientist's cruel experiments. Overall the room was cold and professional without any redeeming features whatsoever.

There was an odd duck in the room, however, and it took the form of a large, bulky machine that looked as if it had been pulled from a wreckage. Designed like a yin-yang orb over two meters tall and etched with burn scars was a strange metal pod of sorts. Juri ran her fading fingers over the center crease where the two halves connected and chirped in relief when they slid open to reveal a crisp, clean and padded interior. There was a place to stand or sit right in the center too, and above the central pedestal were a myriad of mechanical and surgical parts. To Adon, it looked like some kind of escape pod in a movie.

"In here, quickly. Put my body here."

"What is this thing?" Adon asked as he did what Juri asked. He placed her body up in the center of the pod, but when it slouched and started to fall, he managed to pull out a surface to sit on and positioned the body there. "What are we doing?"

"This machine was pulled directly from SIN's main facility. It does maintenance on my eye and downloads updates onto it from time to time, but it can also remove and insert the eye." Juri reached up to pat her body's left eye socket and looked past the lids to examine the Feng Shui Engine prototype. She let out a heavy sigh and turned back to Adon. "In this case… We'll use it to swap out the prototype for the real deal."

"And you think it'll bring you back to life, huh?"

"It's worth a try. Honestly, I've got nothing else."

"Alright," Adon grumbled. He had his doubts that this would work, but then again, far crazier things had happened in the past. "Show me what to do, then."

The setup process wasn't difficult. Juri directed Adon to place the Feng Shui Engine in a nearby receptacle as she went to a control pad to begin inputting instructions. Her fingers darted over keys while her eyes flicked up every now and again to check on her body. There was the possibility that her body could somehow reanimate itself back under Bison's control or, far worse, the corrupted prototype eye might trigger some kind of self-destruct sequence and do unspeakable damage. The woman was wary, but those things didn't come to pass. In due time she had the large machine up and running.

Now that everything was in its place, Juri hovered her finger over an 'execute' command.

"This should do it." She glanced back at Adon and smiled at how he managed to stand tall and proud despite his injuries. He didn't return the gesture. "Adon, I… I'll see you on the other side."

The man said nothing in response but nodded. Juri started the machine, heard the hiss of the doors closing in on her body and started to fade away once more. This time the vapors that made up her form did not become thinner or more transparent. Instead, they disappeared entirely, or rather, they shifted towards the pod and seeped through the doors' center crease. The pod began to rumble and shake as a series of high-pitched beeps and shrill whirrs came from within. Power coursed through heavy-duty cables and poured into the machine while the control pad affixed to the side showed a rudimentary progress bar of sorts.

Adon had no obligation to Juri anymore. He could have left at that very moment. From the sounds of it, one or more of the four dolls had gotten up and were working on getting the server room exit open so they could get the hell out of Dodge. With a little ingenuity, diplomacy or intimidation the man could follow them out and return to his village to put all this behind him. If Juri's crazy idea worked, then she would be able to get herself out of this subterranean facility on her own. If not, then… well, Adon figured he couldn't care less.

But he did care. He cared far more than he ever thought possible. It wasn't enough that Adon had come to respect Juri as a fighter. No, he had come to like her as a person, or at the very least he had a desire to know more about her. Adon was not an affectionate man, and so the thought of being attracted to this woman he had only known for about a day chilled him to the bone. As much as he fought to deny it, it stemmed from his insecurity.

"You're such a loyal dog," Adon muttered to himself. He threw his hands up in defeat and went to rummage around in a nearby medical cabinet. "Loyal to some… some woman who lied about there being a treat. Any treat at all. No, not a dog. A fool." He pulled out a red medkit and gave it a jostle to ascertain its contents before sighing. "Ach, well… Better a fool than some feckless cretin."

And so the man waited, and as he did just that, he nursed his wounds. He looked for alcohol for his cuts, converted an eyewash station into a wash basin and bandaged himself up as best as he could. Adon shied away from stitching himself up, but not because of his anxiety around needles. When it was critical that he did his own stitching, the man could get past his fear and do what needed to be done. He wasn't too ashamed to admit that he was still a little traumatized from the fight with Aprile.

Nearly ten minutes passed by until the Feng Shui Engine machine (if that was its official designation) let out a cheery string of beeps and whistles and stopped shaking about. It was like a microwave oven, or at least, that was the first thing Adon could think of in an attempt to relieve the tension. He walked up to the large pod and looked on as the oddly-shaped doors hissed and pulled apart. Steam or smoke, Adon couldn't tell which, had fogged up the interior and obscured the occupant while a few short, sharp metallic 'clinks' echoed from the nearby receptacle and announced the removal of the prototype Feng Shui Engine. The device was in pieces; Juri must have programmed the machine to sabotage it during the removal process.

Slowly yet surely the fog dissipated, and from there Adon could see an outline of the woman.

"Did it work?" There was no response. Somewhat perturbed by this, Adon was beginning to get impatient, but only in the sense that it the two had overstayed their welcome. "Listen, we need to-"

A heavy, drawn-out sigh came from Juri as she fell forward and out from the pod. Adon reached out on reflex and caught her in his arms without sparing a thought as to whether or not any of this had worked. The first thing he noticed was the warmth. Before, the body, previously under Bison's control, had been so cold and stiff. But now Adon could feel the warmth here, and as his hands moved to put the woman into a more comfortable carry, he could hear a steady, healthy heartbeat. Juri being unresponsive wasn't the best outcome, but at least she was alive.

Hopefully.

"I suppose it worked then. How fortunate for you," Adon scoffed as he exited the room with Juri draped over his shoulder. He had a right to be bitter considering that Juri got what she wanted while Adon didn't. "Hmm. Though, maybe that's for the best."

Indeed, the two had overstayed their welcome. As Adon moved back into the server room he expected to be set upon by Shadaloo security, or perhaps the dolls again. But the facility was in a state of disarray as if it was about to self-destruct. Pure speculation and malarkey in hindsight, but Adon wasn't about to stick around to find out if it was true. Walking with a slight limp in his side, the man came upon the four dolls mulling about the server room exit doors before März got them opened. Xiayu limped out with Aprile hanging around her shoulders, März followed suit with Jianyu and, when the four were far enough away, Adon slipped out as well.

It was dangerous to follow the dolls, but Adon figured they knew how to escape better than any other common Shadaloo grunt. He knew that they were aware of him, but whether because of fear or the overbearing urge to flee, they left him alone. The same was said for any other Shadaloo personnel Adon brushed shoulders with; they had other things to worry about besides an injured, shirtless Thai wandering around the facility with a pale Korean over his shoulder. Someone said something about the facility having been compromised and under assault by police or some paramilitary organization- most likely alerted by Adon and Juri's explosive entrance- and that they were coming from the main entrance. Adon didn't care; he just kept following the dolls.

As alarms and shouts echoed from afar, Adon saw the dolls pile into a hidden stairway that led up to the surface. He started up the stairs and winced at every fourth step, but despite his injuries, he was determined to get out from this subterranean hellhole. Halfway there he felt Juri stir against him and invigorate him to keep going. Though the man put little stock in doing good by others, he had to admit that helping Juri out felt rather nice. He was still bitter and somewhat angry that she had been lying to him, but Adon supposed that was a conversation for another day.

"Is this the woman who called me an insecure asshole, or is this someone else?" Adon mused aloud.

"You're still an ass," Juri groaned. She opened her eyes to look upon a set of hazel ones. "What's going on?"

"We're getting out of here. Overstayed our welcome. Sounds like the police are raiding the facility." The Korean lifted her head just enough to look down the stairwell as Adon kept climbing. She cooed, brooding, and rested her head back against the man's shoulder. "So, I figure everything worked."

Juri hummed in response.

"And uh… How do you feel now?"

"Conflicted. I've developed a newfound hatred for Bison that I never thought possible before, and I have the overwhelming urge to burn this stupid Shadaloo jumpsuit.…" Adon could feel Juri attempt a shrug even as she was being carried. "But at the same time, I think… I think Bison made my boobs a little bigger. Not sure how I should feel ab-"

"That's not what I was asking," Adon yipped with a disturbed quiver in his tone.

"Oh. Well... I feel alive. Ha! Alive!"

"Then you can walk on your own now, can't you?"

"I dunno, I kinda like being carried like this."

Adon's immediate response would have been to let go and watch Juri flop to the floor, but he let it slide. He huffed, rolled his eyes and continued up the stairs to find an open door and a stretch of jungle waiting for him under an evening sky. Upon exiting Adon turned around and realized that this secret escape route ended up as a dilapidated, inconspicuous shed that had been overtaken by nature. He had to admit that it was rather clever, even for Shadaloo. Ignoring the rustling of leaves and feminine grunts coming from the four dolls dissolving into the jungle, Adon lowered Juri onto her feet and drifted a few feet away to find someplace to sit and clear his head.

"What about you?"

Adon looked back at Juri. Out of the facility and in the sunlight, Juri didn't look half bad. Indeed, she was alive, and though she looked a little woozy and out of sorts, it was clear that she was grateful. She was still a pale-skinned, dark-haired witch of a woman; that didn't seem likely to change anytime soon, nor did Adon desire for that to happen.

"What about me?"

"What ab- Ooh, modesty!" The Korean moved to sit down with the Muay Thai prodigy on a fallen log. She leaned towards him with an expectant smile, much to his surprise. "How do you feel?"

"I'm hurt all over," Adon replied without missing a beat. "I'm tired, I'm sure I've sprained something and, worst of all, I feel li-" He caught himself and turned away from Juri. "Bah. Forget it."

"You feel like a fool, huh?"

Silence ensued before Adon broke it with a sigh and a glum nod.

"You have every right to hold everything against me, you know. I take you out of your house, make you a pariah in your own village, lie about that power you've been lusting after for years and here I am now in the flesh while you've spilled your own blood for no reward." Juri's smile faltered a little as an unfamiliar emotion arose. "You could have walked away. You could have taken Bison's offer and left me to die. But… You fought for me. I owe you my life, Adon."

Adon wanted to explain himself. Arrogance encouraged him to brush away this gratitude and leave the woman to her own devices, but instead, he maintained his silence and offered the woman another nod of his head.

"Aaaaand… If you ask me, you're far better off without that Raging Demon or whatever."

"What makes you say that?"

"You cleaned Shadaloo clock down there. Nevermind the grunts and minions, you fought with Shadaloo's elite dolls and my… ugh, my superpowered, zombie body and survived." Adon opened his mouth to retort, but Juri shot him down in an instant. "Yes, I was there to help, yes. I'd like to think that I'm an irrepressible force, but down there I was nowhere near as powerful as I had once been. That was all you, baby. You're stronger than you think you are."

That information proved hard to process for Adon, but with Juri being genuine with her statements coupled with the relief of surviving, the man realized that she was right about him at this moment.

"Hmm… Yes, yes you're right. Of course, I'm stronger than- I'm the strongest fighter there is!" Despite the pain echoing throughout his body, the arrogant Thai sat up straighter and pumped his fist. "Raging Demon? Bah, what utter nonsense… The true King of Muay Thai shouldn't need to lust after some cheap parlor trick!"

"King, huh?" Juri stood up and looked out into the jungle. "I thought you were the Emperor."

"Well, king sounds a lot better, doesn't? And there can only be one king."

Through a clearing in the jungle, the two could see the main entrance to the subterranean facility, the very same one that they had broken into hours ago, abuzz with activity. Red and blue police lights flashed through the smoke of the destroyed, flaming Shadaloo van. Grunts and researchers alike were being rounded up by heavily-armed law enforcement and corralled into transport vehicles. Obnoxious, recalcitrant goons were knocked to the ground and tied up while a few others managed to slip away and dive into the jungle only to find a paramilitary force flush them back out.

Bringing the law to the jungle was not Adon's intention, but so long as nobody noticed him watching from afar with an ex-SIN operative, he couldn't care less.

"So, what will you do now?" Adon asked.

"I dunno," Juri replied with a shrug of her shoulders. "With SIN gone for good, I'm lost. All my plans, safehouses and contacts… All gone or compromised now. I've got nothing except the Feng Shui Engine." She tucked a strand of raven hair behind her ear and turned back to Adon, once again sporting that expectant smile of hers. "So uh… Provided you haven't been banned from your village since we left…"

"Y-you want to stay with me?"

"Well yeah, why wouldn't I? Like I said, I owe you my life, and you didn't get much in return from this little adventure. I can think of so many ways to repay you."

A blush crept into Adon's cheeks as he adopted a look as if he had just heard a lewd joke he didn't quite get. Juri caught the look and started to giggle.

"Ooooh, I like the way you think, but no." Her eyebrows bounced as her smile turned into a sly grin. "Well, maybe. We'll see."

"Erm… I uh, I suppose it would be cruel of me to leave you out in the elements." Adon rose from his seat and folded his arms with a small smile on his face. "You can stay, provided you cook, clean and help me train. Sound good?"

"Cooking and cleaning? A little degrading, but acceptable," Juri replied with a nod of her head. "I'm in. Now come on. Let's get out of here. I think I see a few Delta Red berets down there and trust me, we do not want to stick around for interrogation."

Back in her body and very much alive, Juri Han felt that this was the start of a new chapter in her life. Though she was without the resources provided by her organization and Bison was still out there in the world, Juri had high hopes that she could work her way back up and end the dictator once and for all. Though she was starting back at square one, she was alive, possessed her Feng Shui Engine, was wiser and even gained an ally. As for Adon, he would be lying if he said he wasn't looking forward to the future. He didn't get what he wanted and for that, he was grateful, for if he did, Juri might not be around to beat some much-needed sense into his head.

As he went to follow Juri out of the jungle, Adon came to realize that having her around for company didn't sound that bad. Not bad at all. Only time would tell if Adon had truly made the right decision back in the facility, but so far… the King of Muay Thai had a good feeling.

 **END**


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